Your Body is a Weapon
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "'You'll find another meister partner. I'm sure there's someone better suited to your weapon type than me.'" After Shinra finds a different weapon partner, Izaya is unwilling to even consider the possibility of working with someone new until latecomer meister Heiwajima Shizuo joins Shibusen in search of a partner. Part one of When I've Got You series. Followed by By Your Side.
1. Cold

Shinra is packing when Izaya gets back to the apartment.

Izaya can hear the noise from the front door. Shinra must be in his bedroom and moving with more force than care; Izaya hears no less than two things fall to the floor while he's slipping off his shoes in the entryway, one of those followed by a faint "Oh dear!" that speaks to some kind of breakage as a result. Izaya raises an eyebrow at the sound, although there's no one to see him, feels his mouth tugging on amusement, and when he moves down the hallway he stops in the doorway to Shinra's room before continuing on to his own.

"Afternoon," he offers from the entry, crossing his arms and leaning a shoulder against the support of the frame as he considers the absolute mess Shinra has made of his room. There are clothes everywhere, scattered across the bed and half-unfolded from the dresser; Izaya can only see the very edge of the textbooks usually left open on the meister's desk under the heaps of loose notepaper that have been tossed somewhat precariously atop them. He raises his eyebrow higher, tips his head to consider Shinra where he's currently on his knees and rummaging through boxes in his closet. "Have you decided to stage an evacuation drill or something?"

Shinra emerges from the shadows of his closet, straightening to look back at Izaya in the doorway for a moment. He looks breathless, a little dusty from his efforts and with his glasses askew on his nose before he reaches up to adjust them. The bright mania behind his eyes Izaya ignores entirely; that's something he stopped worrying about weeks ago, after he realized that's just the way Shinra looks at everything all the time.

"Ah, Izaya!" Shinra chirps, sounded as surprised as if anyone other than his weapon partner is likely to wander into the doorway of his room. "You're back! How was the test?"

"Easy," Izaya says, dismissing the memory of the introductory test he went through as casually as he dismisses Shinra's question. It was intended for the younger or newer weapons, the ones who don't yet have good control over their weapon form; with the razor edge of a switchblade humming possibility inside his veins, Izaya long ago had to develop the self-control the test was meant to establish. "What about you?"

"I've been wonderful," Shinra sighs. There's a strange softness under his voice, a dreamy distraction that proves to have spread across his whole expression, when Izaya looks for it; Shinra's gazing up at the edge of the ceiling, now, his focus clearly abstracted away from Izaya's face and into whatever he is seeing in the theater of his own imagination. "Today I fell in love."

Izaya can feel his mouth twist on amusement, can feel laughter pressing against the inside of his chest. "Oh good," he says. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," Shinra replies, apparently entirely oblivious to the slick bite of sarcasm under Izaya's words. "I've never been so happy in all my life."

Izaya turns to press his back against the frame of the door instead of his shoulder, settling himself in for what promises to be one of Shinra's more amusing personal anecdotes. "You definitely look it. I've never seen you look so human."

"She's brought light into my monochrome life," Shinra sighs, clasping his hands in front of him and fixing the ceiling with a hazy smile as if the aforementioned _she_ is just beyond the plain white of the ceiling overhead. "I saw her from across the classroom and I just _knew_ , she's the only one for me."

Izaya fights for control over the laughter that is trying to break free of his chest. "Really," he says, attaining something only barely passable as calm. It doesn't matter; he's fairly sure Shinra won't notice the failure. "Another meister, then? Who's her weapon?"

"Oh no," Shinra says, shaking his head vigorously as he unclasps his hands and turns back to whatever he's trying to do in his closet. "She was coming in to help the professor with a demonstration. She's a scythe, a black one, dark as the velvet embrace of night itself!"

Izaya grins at this display of unprecedented poetry from his up-until-now rational meister. "Soon you'll be composing sonnets to win fair lady's heart."

"Do you think she'd like that?" Shinra asks without emerging from the closet.

Izaya rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "I don't _know_ , Shinra, I've never seen her. Probably, as long as they're not horrible."

"It's worth a try, anyway!" Shinra unfolds from the closet again; he has a box in front of him and is shoving carelessly at the mismatched shapes inside. "I'm willing to try anything on behalf of my love!"

"You're very devoted for having seen her maybe five minutes," Izaya observes. "Do you already know her birthday and who her meister is, too?"

"Oh, she doesn't have a meister," Shinra says cheerfully without looking up from the box. "She's just starting at the Academy. It's only because she grew up here that she came in for the demonstration and to meet us all. I don't know if she's ever met so many meisters all at the same time before; she looked a little overwhelmed and didn't say a word the whole of class."

Izaya shrugs. "I'm sure she'll adjust soon. Once she has a meister partner she can figure out the rest of it from there."

"Yep," Shinra agrees, and reaches to fold the top of the box in over on itself. "I'll definitely be sure to take good care of her!"

Izaya doesn't get Shinra's meaning right away. He's usually quick to pick up the thread of conversation, to shape meaning from the overt declaration of words and the often unintended implications of voice and volume and body language; he's not sure why in this moment his awareness refuses to process what Shinra is saying, why it is he huffs a laugh and says, "You better hope she doesn't have a jealous meister for you to deal with" as if he's only hearing the most obvious portion of Shinra's communication to him instead of the layers of suggestion underneath.

"That won't be a problem!" Shinra tells Izaya, as cheerfully direct about this as he ever is. "I caught up to her after class and asked her to partner with me!"

Shinra's not looking at Izaya. His focus is entirely on the cardboard box in front of him that he's currently sealing shut with a line of tape; it leaves Izaya without an audience for the first rush of shock that hits him, with no one to see the way his shoulders tense against the door and his mouth comes open on a rush of sudden understanding as his stomach goes cold with awareness.

"Oh," he says past lips gone numb with the first rush of unpleasant adrenaline. "It's going to be hard to pull off, you know, even for you."

"What is?" Shinra says as he sticks down the trailing edge of the tape against the side of the box.

Izaya swallows hard, fighting to get moisture back into the dry of his mouth around the spreading suspicion that is crawling out into his veins like unseasonable chill in the air. "Working with two weapons at once."

"Oh, no," Shinra says, so lightly Izaya has a moment of hope, a brief heartbeat of desperate relief trying to gain traction on him as if it can justify its own existence through sheer force. Then Shinra looks up from the box, and smiles wide, and Izaya can feel all the attempts he might make at saving the situation crumble to dust in his anxious grasp. "I'm going to devote all my attention to Celty. It's the least she deserves, with as perfect a weapon as she is going to become! Not that she's not already perfect, of course-" as he pushes to his feet and picks up the box to set alongside two similar ones on the mess he's made of his bed, "-but she'll be even better once I make her into a true Death Scythe!"

Izaya looks around the room - the row of boxes on the bed, the open bag in the corner, the array of clothes spread on every available surface - and feels his jaw set on too-late understanding, as he finally sees all the signs of impending abandonment his everyday comfort blinded him to when he first came in. "You're leaving."

"As soon as I finish packing," Shinra agrees, as blithely unconcerned as if he doesn't hear the set distance under Izaya's words. He actually might not; in the few months they've been partners Izaya has gained an understanding of the distance Shinra keeps between himself and everyone else, up to and including his weapon partner. It's always seemed entertaining to Izaya, an interesting quirk of the boy who asked to partner with him on the first day of class; it's been that same distance that has let them work so well as partners, when every other meister Izaya's ever tried to work with has caved to the involuntary and invasive effect of his possessive soul wavelength. Izaya never expected to feel the edge of that distance like the cut of his own blade turned back around on him.

Shinra's still talking, as oblivious to Izaya's personal crisis as if it's not happening at all. "Celty has an apartment closer to the Academy; I'll be moving into the living room until we can find another place with more bedrooms." He laughs, the sound bright and warm with cheer; Izaya feels it like ice down his spine. "Or until I can persuade her that we only need the one." Shinra looks around the room, frowning consideration at the array of items around him. "I should get my books from the living room before I forget!"

Izaya doesn't move from the doorway. He's not entirely sure he could, not sure the chill turning his blood to ice will allow him the flexibility to move even to make space for Shinra to get past him. The other doesn't hesitate as he approaches; he just turns sideways to step past Izaya standing in the entrance to his room, his smile back in place and his gaze already focused on the living room at the end of the hall. Izaya lets him pass, lets the other start to move away down the hall; it's not until Shinra is turning that he says "Shinra," cold and clear like ice on his tongue.

He's not completely sure Shinra will stop. There's the sound of another footstep, a scuff of hesitation; but then "Yeah?" as calm and unsuspicious as if he's done nothing wrong at all.

Izaya keeps staring at the opposite side of the doorframe. He doesn't want to turn to see the casual unconcern in Shinra's face. "What about me?"

Shinra's laugh is piercing in the enclosed space of the hallway. "That's easy!" he says. "You'll find another meister partner. I'm sure there's someone better suited to your weapon type than me anyway." There's the sound of movement again, the rustle of pages against themselves as Shinra closes the textbooks left open at the coffee table. "We've never even been able to Resonate, you're bound to get along better with someone else."

 _Who_ , Izaya wants to say but doesn't. _I don't know anyone else here. I'm not_ friends _with anyone else here. Who am I supposed to find who doesn't already have a weapon partner of their own?_

"Sure," he says out loud. "Easy. No problem."

"It'll be better this way," Shinra says, without a trace of apology anywhere in his voice or words. "It's just the way it goes sometimes. There's no fighting with love!"

Izaya turns out of the doorway to Shinra's room and looks out to the living room instead. Shinra is bent low over the coffee table, his back to Izaya and his focus devoted to stacking the books he's collecting with far more care than that he just showed Izaya himself. He's humming to himself, Izaya thinks, or maybe that's the ringing in his own ears, the adrenaline of horror with nowhere to go except twist in on itself in his chest to press breathless weight against the rhythm of his breathing. Izaya's hands are limp at his sides, his shoulders slack and unresisting; but it would be easy, he thinks, somewhere in the distance of his mind, alongside the white noise of his heartbeat ringing in his ears. Shinra's back is turned to him, will be for minutes still; he won't turn at Izaya's approach, won't think to react even if Izaya draws close alongside him. The weapon in Izaya's blood is trembling to be given form, thrumming under his skin like the razor edge of the blade is ready to cut through his own flesh and bone to break free, to grant him the voice for protest that he can't find amid the cold hurt tamping his throat to silence. He could step across the distance, could lift his hand, could...but Shinra is humming to himself, and Izaya's hands are slack at his sides, and when Izaya moves it's to turn away instead of stepping closer, to move down the hallway to the darkened frame of his own room where he can shut the door on Shinra's casual cruelty.

His room is dark with the door shut. There's homework out on the desk, reading assignments he was meant to do in preparation for next week's practice fights; it's useless to him, now, when he'll have to backtrack over the months of work he and Shinra have done together and start all over again with a new meister, with someone he doesn't even know yet. He's have to go back to the class with the new students, he thinks, the ones he sat through forgotten for three weeks before a meister wearing a lab coat and with mania behind his eyes introduced himself as Shinra and asked Izaya to partner with him. Izaya wonders how long it will take, this time, for someone to notice him from the crowd of new weapons, wonders if anyone will at all, if maybe he'll just be left alone in the corner of the room to watch the other students smile and giggle and fall into pairs established by friendship, or gender, or interests that Izaya doesn't share and doesn't care about. Maybe he'll stay there forever, too dangerous to be left alone without a meister partner and too forgettable to be selected from the crowd in which he too-readily dissolves himself.

He doesn't realize he's moving until his knuckles hit the wall, until the force of the impact bruises human-soft skin against fragile bone with an agony that travels all the way up his arm to ache in the back of his head with the dull persistence of physical damage. Izaya doesn't draw his hand away from the point of contact with the wall, doesn't lift his head to look at the dark bruise coming in under the fingers he didn't bother to convert into the rigid steel of his weapon form. He just stays where he is, head bowed and arm extended, his knuckles throbbing dull hurt where they're still pressed to the wall.

Shinra doesn't come to ask about the sound. Izaya tells himself he didn't expect him to.


	2. Magnetic

Shibusen is different than Shizuo expected.

The building is as he thought it would be. The high arches at the front and bright colors of the exterior perfectly match the pictures he's looked at over the kitchen table with Kasuka, and the stairway leading up to the main entrance is even more impressive in person than it was in the images he's seen. He's grinning by the time he makes it to the front of the school, his legs aching and his imagination skipping ahead to the kind of people who must live in a school like this, the people among whom Shizuo's strength and hair-trigger temper will be nothing more than another quirk among the crowd.

It's different inside. The outside is overwhelming, the whole front as imposing as it always appeared to be in photographs; but inside the hallways are full of students walking in twos and threes, years younger even than Kasuka with wide eyes to greet Shizuo's height and bleached-blond hair. They shy away from him and make it impossible to ask for directions, until finally Shizuo finds the hall to where he's meant to go more by accident than assistance from anyone else, and by the time he's stepping forward into the Death Room he can feel the weight of frustration hunching itself into the line of his shoulders before he's even introduced himself.

He's too old, it seems. Shibusen welcomes weapons and meisters of all ages, and they're not about to turn Shizuo away given his stated desire to become one of the second; but most weapons transform in elementary or middle school and start then, and most meisters enroll at a similar age to increase their options for a partner. There's no age restriction, Shizuo is told in a chipper tone entirely at odds with his expectation for the headmaster of the school; but it is true that he's a handful of years older than most of the unpartnered weapons.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," the headmaster goes on, idly tapping his cane against the floor of his office. "It might make finding a partner a bit of a challenge, but after that it's just a matter of how well you can connect with your weapon."

"Sure," Shizuo says, and "thanks" and goes back out to the city to track down the apartment he leased some weeks ago in preparation for his move here. His belongings are delivered in a handful of boxes to go along with the minimal furniture already in the space - a bed, a couch, a television, a thin strip of a kitchen with a few appliances and a neat selection of pots and pans in the cupboards. Shizuo unpacks his clothes and the few books he brought with him, considers making himself something to eat, and then walks down to the convenience store instead to buy a roll he can eat while he wanders around the city and makes the blocks familiar with every forward step he takes. He feels better by the time he comes back in, less hungry and more tired with the all-over exhaustion that comes with a full day of travel, and when he topples himself into bed it's to surrender to a sleep so deep it doesn't leave space for dreams. He's hopeful when he wakes up, optimistic about his first day and looking forward to meeting his future weapon partner; he has a glass of milk in lieu of breakfast, and locks his apartment door behind him, and makes his way to Shibusen with anticipation curling warm into his veins.

Class goes less smoothly than he hoped.

The weapons _are_ young, very young, nervous in their first class and visibly anxious with the pressure of choosing a possible partner from the crowd. All they're meant to do is find someone to work with for the span of the class to get a sense of their compatibility and skills; but everyone Shizuo approaches has already found someone else to work with, some of them by bolting towards the nearest unoccupied meister and demanding to partner up while Shizuo is still a few steps away. By the time the instructor starts coming around the room to check on the formed pairs Shizuo has startled two girls and one boy into forming trios with a single meister and is standing unpartnered at the side of the room trying and largely failing to not scowl irritation at the sideways glances his height and blond hair are getting from the new weapons in the room.

"Ah, Heiwajima-kun," the instructor says as she draws nearer, sounding and looking entirely unsurprised to find the latest addition to the class standing alone. "Troubles finding a weapon to work with?"

"It's fine," Shizuo says, frowning the words out at the other clusters of students in the room. "I'll just do the exercise on my own, I can-"

"You can't," the instructor says, her voice cutting him off without any indication of apology. "The whole purpose of today is a partner exercise, it's not something a meister or a weapon can participate in without someone to work with."

"Okay," Shizuo grates. "Then I'll just go-"

"Orihara-kun," the instructor calls, again without the least sign of so much as noticing that Shizuo is speaking. "Have you tried partnering with the new meister?" Shizuo turns to see where the instructor is looking, back amidst the shadows along the edge of the room; and it's then that he sees the other student sitting against the wall with his knees drawn up in front of his chest so Shizuo can't see the white of the tag he must have pinned to his shirt. Shizuo hadn't seen him there on his earlier passes through the room, isn't sure he noticed the other at all; but the other student is staring at him, watching Shizuo with an intensity that says he's been doing so for some time without Shizuo's notice. The idea prickles discomfort down Shizuo's spine and tenses his shoulders with the retroactive awareness of unseen attention; he wonders how long those dark eyes have been fixed on him, wonders how much of him the other student has seen while Shizuo thought himself unobserved.

"I don't want to," the other says in response to the instructor's question. He doesn't move to get to his feet and he doesn't look away from Shizuo; there's a suggestion of red behind his eyes, like the promise of spilled blood making a threat of his silent stare. "There's no point anyway, I haven't been able to partner with anyone else." He shrugs. "I'll just watch class again today."

"You will not," the instructor says, her voice calm and clear but leaving no space at all for demurral. "If you're not able to find a partner for class that's one thing, but you will not be permitted to continue your stubborn sulking when there is an unmatched meister as well."

The other student finally turns away from Shizuo to fix the instructor with a glare instead. He's older than the other students, Shizuo can see from the angles of his face, and his jaw is set to match the hard forward angle of the his shoulders.

"How do you know we're even compatible?" he snaps. "This is just going to be one other meister scared off before we even get to the first exercise."

The instructor lifts a hand to carefully adjust her glasses. "You don't know that for certain," she says, her calm completely unaffected by the rising tension Shizuo can see setting itself under the other student's shoulders. "It's worth an attempt."

"What are you talking about?" Shizuo breaks in, nearly talking over the instructor with the force of the words. The instructor glances sideways at him but he doesn't look at her; he's glaring at the weapon instead, meeting and holding the other's shadowy gaze as he turns back to look at Shizuo. "I'm not going to be _scared off_ , what do you mean?"

"Oh, yeah, you look like a big strong meister," the other student drawls, his voice lilting the words into a mockery of a girlish compliment. "You can take on anything, you're ready to face all the evil in the world with your bare hands if you have to. I know your type. You wouldn't last five seconds wielding me."

"Orihara-kun," the instructor sighs. "There's no need for-"

"Five seconds?" Shizuo growls, taking a step closer to the boy still sitting on the floor of the classroom. The action brings him closer, casts his shadow over the other student to darken the red in his eyes to grey and shade the hints of brown in his hair to uniform black, but the other doesn't so much as flinch; he leans back instead, his mouth curling into a smirk as he makes a show of deliberately relaxing in the face of the threat Shizuo knows his stance offers. "Don't act like you're some kind of god, you don't even know my name."

"You're Heiwajima-kun," the other says from his slouch against the wall. "I don't need to know any more than that, you're nothing special."

"Fuck you," Shizuo snaps. "If you're like this with everyone it's no wonder you haven't been able to find a meister willing to partner with you."

The other's eyes narrow, his smirk tensing into irritation instead of mockery. "It's not my attitude that's the problem."

Shizuo huffs an unamused laugh. "Yeah, keep telling yourself that. I don't care, I'll find someone else to partner with. I don't like you anyway."

"Will you?" the other fires back. "I don't see many other options available to you. Seems like you're as unpopular as I am."

"It's my first day," Shizuo tells him. "How long have _you_ been sitting in a corner waiting for someone to find you?"

"It's not like that." The other's irritation is coalescing into actual anger, Shizuo can see the deliberate slump of his shoulders tightening even as he stays reclined against the wall. His mouth is caught into a frown, now, his lips tense on frustration as he glares shadows up at Shizuo. "You don't know anything about who I am."

"I don't _care_ ," Shizuo snaps, and extends his hand into the space between them like the motion carries the weight of a threat. "If you're too scared to even transform why are you at Shibusen in the first place?"

The other student stares up at Shizuo. His mouth is still set on that frown, his lips pressed tight together like he's holding back some seething edge of viciousness, or maybe like he's trying to hone his words to sufficient violence. From beside Shizuo the instructor clears her throat and offers "Heiwajima-kun," with as much calm as if she has entirely missed the escalating argument between Shizuo and the unpartnered weapon. "If you intend to wield Orihara-kun you should-"

" _I'm not scared_ ," the other grates, throwing his words like blows over the gap between he and Shizuo and with the edge on his voice overwhelming whatever it is the instructor is saying. There's a haze of light, a brief halo of illumination that collects at the edges of his hair and over the aggressive tilt of his shoulders, and then the furious heat of his gaze flickers into a different form, the spark of his anger collapsing to the shine off a knife-edge, and Shizuo is reaching out as the instructor continues: "-take care with-" her words coming as a distant backdrop to his attention as he reaches for the glow of light to close his grip hard around the handle of the open switchblade the other has become.

A prickle runs all the way up Shizuo's arm, electricity shuddering out into his veins and cramping his muscles as his fingers seize against the knife under his hold. There's sound in his head, white-noise static with an undercurrent of fury, as if electricity has been given sentience and is irate at being trapped within the insufficient span of a human form like Shizuo's. Something's catching at the back of his thoughts, some foreign entity is casting a shadow over his vision like it's trying to gain control over his sight. Everything flickers to dark for a moment, Shizuo's thoughts start to unravel in the back of his mind like his consciousness is fraying to the force of a stranger's touch; and then, clear like a struck bell ringing inside the span of his head, _I don't_ have _partners_ with a vicious edge under the words that identifies the speaker more clearly than the almost-hallucinated tone does.

"Fuck," Shizuo says, or thinks he says; he's not completely sure if it's aloud or just something he thinks with sufficient force to pass for audible. The shadow at the back of his mind is reaching, is stretching out with greedy fingers to grab and tug at the threads of Shizuo's consciousness to make them its own; Shizuo can almost imagine the shape of it, can almost see blood-red eyes amidst the darkness and the hunched shoulders under a shirt made of shadow instead of fabric. There's the cut of a humorless smile, the drag of an illusory touch against Shizuo's awareness; and Shizuo _shoves_ , pushes the shadow back hard with some force he can't quite parse as physical but that feels as effortless as batting aside a punch from some stranger on the street. That straining reach slips free, the attempt at overtaking his self jolts loose without any effort at all, and inside Shizuo's head the haze clears at once, the shadow giving way as if it's night ceding control to the sudden illumination of daybreak.

"Okay," Shizuo says, blinking hard to bring his vision back into focus from the brief flicker of distraction that pulled it away into hazy inattention. He looks down at the knife in his hand and shifts his fingers to steady his grip against the handle. "So you're a knife."

 _Oh_ , comes a voice in his head, tiny and whisper-faint, like it's coming from a long way off or shocked into breathless quiet he isn't meant to hear, and aloud, with her eyes slightly wider than they were and her voice minimally more shaken, "Heiwajima-kun?" as the instructor stares at him.

"Yeah," Shizuo says. The instructor blinks as if startled, like she's just seeing him for the first time. "What?"

"You're-" she starts, pausing for a breath so short Shizuo almost doesn't notice it, wouldn't at all were it not for the flicker of movement behind the silver frames of her glasses as she blinks. "-Not Orihara-kun."

Shizuo's forehead creases. "Who?"

"Your weapon," the instructor says, ducking her chin to indicate the smooth black of the textured handle under Shizuo's hold and the glint of the light off what Shizuo suspects to be a razor-edged blade. "He's completely dominated the soul wavelength of every meister who's tried to wield him since he joined the class. You're the first one who's been able to resist it."

"Huh," Shizuo says out loud. There's a flicker of sensation that runs up his arm, electricity purring along his veins in search of a point to ground out against; Shizuo frowns at the blade in his hand and tightens his grip on the handle until the heat retreats back down to cling like static to his fingertips alone. "Okay."

"You're doing better with him than I've seen anyone else manage," the instructor informs him, her voice falling back to the level calm she's maintained for all but the last few minutes. "I'll leave you two to work together for the duration of class. Let me know if you have any issues," and she's turning away, raising her voice as she returns to the front of the room to draw the eyes of the scattered students back to her. Shizuo is left with the unfamiliar weight of a knife in his hand, the prickling anticipation of an unfinished fight running along his spine, and a silence in the back of his thoughts so utterly still it carries more weight under it than yelling would do.

"Hey," Shizuo says, quietly, so softly he can barely hear the word even himself. "Your name's Orihara?" There's no response from the quiet in the back of his head; but he's sure he heard _something_ when he was still blinking spots from his vision, and there was no one else it could have been but the weapon pressing hard against the palm of his hand. "I'm Heiwajima Shizuo." Still silence. Shizuo frowns unseeing at the other side of the room, all his attention on that deliberate void in the back of his thoughts. "Are you planning to sulk through the whole class? Can you even hear me?"

There's a prickle at the back of Shizuo's neck, sensation as if someone has just heaved a sigh hard enough to gust against the hair falling over his collar; it takes him a moment to realize it was just the sound and not the sensation, that the huff came from that odd silence in the back of his head and not the space just behind his neck.

 _You don't have to talk out loud_. The voice is perfectly clear, even if the sound is softer than the rhythm of the instructor speaking at the front of the room; Shizuo can make out the sharp edges of the tone as clearly as if it were his own thoughts and not someone else's, as if the high catch of that voice is from his own throat instead of echoing against the inside of his head. _Speaking out loud to your weapon just makes you look like an idiot_.

"Fine," Shizuo growls, frowning hard at the room full of other students in front of him. _Can you hear me now?_

 _Jesus_. Shizuo doesn't need to see the other's face to piece together eyerolling disbelief from the tone. _Did they just pick you up off the street, don't you know_ anything _?_

 _I'm new_ , Shizuo thinks as aggressively as he can. _How do you know this anyway?_

 _I'm not an idiot_.

 _Fine,_ Shizuo fires back. _So you're not an idiot. Who_ are _you?_ _What's your name?_

 _Orihara._

 _What's your_ first _name?_

There's a long pause. Shizuo isn't sure for a moment he's going to get a response at all; then there's a shift in the back of his head, the silent equivalent of a sigh, and _Izaya_ , short and abrupt like it's preemptively cutting off any further comment.

 _Orihara Izaya_. The name cuts even in Shizuo's head, the sharp edges of the consonants digging into his memory and averting the possibility of him forgetting the rhythm of the other's name in the future. _Nice to meet you, Izaya-kun_.

There's a hiss at the back of Shizuo's thoughts, a spill of irritation he can feel echo down his spine as if it's his own instead of that of the weapon currently sharing the space of his head. _Likewise, Shizu-chan_.

Shizuo frowns. _Don't call me Shizu-chan_.

 _Oh? What would you prefer, Heiwajima-san?_

Shizuo rolls his eyes. _Whatever. Forget it. We just have to work together for today, right?_ He slides his grip against the knife in his hold, bracing his thumb hard against the angle of the handle. _I just have to put up with you for an hour_.

 _Yeah_ , Izaya says against the inside of his skull. _All you have to do is be patient, Shizu-chan, and I'll be happy to take myself right back out of your life again._

Shizuo doesn't know why his spine prickles at the sound of Izaya's voice any more than he knows why the other's words sound so much like a lie.


	3. Friction

Izaya _hates_ his new meister.

He didn't want to partner with Heiwajima Shizuo. He didn't want to partner with anyone, was determined to scare off or outright overwhelm anyone who made the attempt to wield him until he was allowed to continue through the program as one of the few solo weapons who find it impossible or ineffective to work with someone else. He would have succeeded, too, he thinks, or at least could have stalled until he obtained some psychologically fragile young thing willing to cave to his demands and act as an extension of himself until he is allowed to graduate and carry on with his life somewhere else. It would have only taken another month, or maybe two, and he could have built for himself the hollow framework of a partnership with a meister too cowed to offer the least resistance to his own demands.

He knew the new meister was the wrong partner for him. All it took was a glance at bleached-blond hair and the uncaring slouch of those shoulders and Izaya knew down in his bones that this was the last person he wanted to work with. He had stayed in the back corner of the classroom, letting the shadows and his own stillness make an invisibility of him while he watched the new meister blunder his way through failed interaction after failed interaction with the younger, more flighty weapons. It was entertaining to watch, more amusing than the usual mundanity of yet another class Izaya can't participate in; but then he saw Kujiragi glance at him with consideration behind her level gaze, and by the time she was gesturing the new meister over towards him all Izaya's amusement had evaporated into scowling distaste. The other student seemed no more likely to get along with him either; they started arguing before Izaya even transformed, the other so aggressive in his demands that Izaya had shifted before Kujiragi could finish her warning to the new meister about the soul possession Izaya's weapon form brings with it. Usually Izaya lets that force lead itself along the metal of his blade and the weight of the handle, leaves the ability he has tried and failed to rein in spark itself up the arm of whatever unwary meister he is trying to partner with to latch itself around their wavelength before Kujiragi or some other instructor forces them apart. It's not something he _tries_ to effect, usually; but this time he was reaching as soon as he felt the meister's fingers close around his weapon form, clawing his way up the other's awareness from that one point of contact to rake victory for himself over the mind behind those casually dismissive eyes. He was hot with the force, felt as sharp and bright as if he had become electricity itself, as if it were his own hands reaching to close around the other's soul; and the meister had shoved him back without trying, without even _noticing_ , as if all the control Izaya has accidentally exerted over other meisters is so far beneath him as to not even register in his awareness. Izaya was left as breathless as if he had been struck in truth, even the seething heat of dislike in his thoughts giving way to white-out shock, and by the time he collected himself the meister had fit him into the back of his head like Izaya belonged there, as if the corner of his own awareness was more than enough space for everything that Izaya is and ever could be. Izaya's insults fell flat, after that, cracking and shattering against the meister's unthinking control as surely as his attempt at possession did, and what comfort he gathered from knowing how wrong the other's reassurance that _it's only for the class_ was ran cold and bitter in his veins.

There's no chance of slipping free from this. Izaya knew that before he transformed back at the end of the class, knew it from the speculative look in Kujiragi's gaze on the new meister and the reflexive grace with which the other's movements fit with the edge of Izaya's blade. Kujiragi will be pleased to assign him a new partner, Izaya knows, and the happier for how well-suited they seem to be, and if Izaya feels like he's suffocating under the casually unbreakable force of the other's will it doesn't make a difference to the way they fit together, doesn't seem to ruffle the meister himself at all. They go home separately that first day, but Izaya is sure without asking that the empty half of his two-bedroom apartment will be filled sooner rather than later, can feel the unshakeable future coming for him as surely as he can see all his carefully formed plans crumbling to dust around him. He spends the whole afternoon in the living room, lying across the couch and staring at the dark of the turned-off television and letting the silence of the otherwise empty space bear down on him as he's sure it won't for much longer.

He was right about that, at least.

"Morning," Shizuo offers around a yawn as he comes into the kitchen. He's wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt with a logo for a brand that went out of business five years ago; it looks tattered enough that it's probably twice as old as that. Izaya glances up from his cell phone for a moment, just long enough to give Shizuo a thorough once-over before turning away again with a dismissive flourish.

"Nice of you to join the land of the living," he says in the direction of his screen. "I thought perhaps you had gone into hibernation for the winter. Isn't that what animals like you do to restore your strength?"  
"Fuck you," Shizuo tells him. "Isn't it too early for fighting yet?"

"Maybe for _you_ ," Izaya says without looking up from his cell phone. "I've been up for hours, you're only just now catching up to me."

"That's because you don't sleep." Shizuo continues on past the kitchen table and towards the refrigerator; Izaya looks back up from under his hair as the other passes him, watching the shift of Shizuo's shoulders under his shirt as he pulls the door open and leans in to rummage through the half-full shelves. "Maybe you'd be less insufferable if you got reasonable amounts of rest."

"My personality has nothing to do with insomnia," Izaya informs Shizuo. "Or is it that you don't have the willpower to deal with anything outside your comfort zone? Please, feel free to find yourself another weapon partner, I'd love to see you off."

Shizuo straightens from the fridge with a glass bottle of milk in his hand and turns back to give Izaya a flat look. "Is this how you chased off your last partner too?" he asks, pulling off the lid of the milk and dropping his attention to the drink like it's of far more interest than Izaya glaring at him from the table. "Why are you here at all if you don't want to work with anyone?"

"It's not the concept of having a partner I object to," Izaya says as Shizuo lifts the bottle to his lips and tips his head back to swallow most of the liquid inside at one go. "It's _you_ I don't want to work with."

Shizuo emerges from his attack on the milk stores in the house and lifts a hand to wipe against the damp at his mouth. "Yeah," he says, still looking at the bottle and not at Izaya. "The feeling's mutual." He downs the last of the milk and clatters the empty bottle into the sink. "I promise, if I find another weapon partner you'll be the first to know."

"I look forward to it," Izaya drawls. "If you come home one day to find my things gone, don't bother waiting up for me."

Shizuo rolls his eyes. "I wouldn't dream of it," he says, and he's leaving again, striding back down the hallway with the same unhurried gait that always makes Izaya want to throw something at him. But the empty bottle is too far to grab, and his phone is too liable to breaking, so he settles for "It's your turn to buy more milk!" as a parting blow that feels weak even on his lips. Shizuo doesn't even bother responding; he just turns the corner to his bedroom and shuts the door behind him to leave Izaya alone in the kitchen again. Izaya stares down the hallway, scowling irritation that goes utterly unnoticed, and then he gets up to put on his shoes and goes to wander the city streets where he's at least less likely to run into his assigned meister than in the too-narrow walls of their shared apartment.

He slams the front door on the way out. The satisfaction it offers is minimal, but under the circumstances he'll take what he can get.


	4. Victorious

"I hate this," Izaya informs Shizuo for nearly the dozenth time. "I'm cold. Why did you pick an assignment for the middle of the night in the first place?"

"Shut up," Shizuo says without turning around, also approaching his twelfth repetition. "I just grabbed the first one from the board."

Izaya sighs gustily. "I don't know what else I expected from you. I should have known any kind of logical thought process was beyond your ability. Do you even know how to read, Shizu-chan?"

"Shut _up_ ," Shizuo groans. "Just transform if you're so cold. You won't be uncomfortable in weapon form, right?"

"I don't _want_ to be in weapon form," Izaya snaps back. "If I'm transformed I have to listen to all the inanity that goes through your head, I swear I lose brain cells every time you touch me. I'm not going to spend a second longer with you wielding me than I absolutely have to."

Shizuo scowls into the dark of the city streets in front of them. "Fine. Just keep your mouth shut and let me pay attention, if you're not going to make yourself useful."

"Pay attention to _what_?" Izaya asks, but the bite on the words makes them rhetorical, and he does go quiet after, miracle of miracles. With nothing but the sound of their paired footsteps scuffing against the sidewalk Shizuo can achieve something almost like calm, can nearly imagine that he is going to his first assignment with the kind of partner he always thought he would have, with the steady support of a trusted weapon at his shoulder instead of the constant irritation that Izaya brings to their only barely functional relationship. It's enough to let his shoulders ease from their usual tense strain, enough to let the knot of ever-tightening anger loosen in his chest; he's just starting to reach something breathlessly close to calm when there's a flicker ahead of them, a shadow darting from one side of the street to the other, and Shizuo stops dead in the middle of the walkway.

"There," he says, even though Izaya's stopped too, even though the catch of the other's breath says he saw the shape as well. "That was it."

"How do you know?" Izaya asks, but it's in the same low whisper Shizuo offered for his statement, and that's enough agreement to work with. Shizuo starts moving again, stepping forward with carefully soft footfalls to place himself in the shadows of the narrow street, and Izaya stays close behind him, stepping so nearly in time with Shizuo's movements that their footsteps overlap into a single soft sound instead of two. "Maybe it was just a stray animal out for a midnight wander without its owner's permission." There's a pause. "Say, Shizu-chan, _does_ your keeper know you're out this late? Maybe I should have brought a leash to collar any feral pets I found."

"Shut up," Shizuo hisses, because there's a sound from ahead of them, the low rumble of it reverberating off the narrow streets until he can't get a good sense of placement. It's around the corner in any case, close enough that he can feel his heart skip into doubletime with the imminent threat of combat; he still hasn't gotten a good look at it, still isn't completely sure what he's going to see when he rounds the corner. Shizuo pauses at the turn for the cross-street, pressing himself back against the wall and staring out unseeing at the front of the office building before them; he can hear the sound of heavy footsteps, can hear the shuffle of some inhuman movement so near he can almost imagine the alien joint structure that must go with it.

"Okay," he says, and tips his head to look at Izaya. The weapon is watching him, his eyes darkened to shadows by the dim lighting; his shoulders are relaxed, his mouth weighted at the corners into the same frown that he usually wears when facing Shizuo. He looks as if he's standing in their kitchen, as if he's facing Shizuo from across the width of their living room, as if the immediacy of the threat a few steps away is of no interest to him. There's something behind his eyes that prickles against Shizuo's spine, some suspicion that creases in his forehead, and for a moment the impending combat slips from his focus to make space for another, greater concern.

"You're going to need to-" he starts, and then there's a shriek from around the corner, a sound of pure panic from an unmistakably human source, and Shizuo's attention skids away from Izaya, his head whipping around towards the corner and the cross-street as his body goes tense with sudden adrenaline. He still has no idea what's around the corner, and Izaya is still standing there untransformed; but there's no time to hesitate, Shizuo's feet are throwing him forward into a skidding run before he even has time to speak.

" _Transform_ ," he shouts at Izaya, his voice jumping loud and echoing off the walls of the street, and then he's rounding the corner at a dead run, reaching out to catch his momentum against the edge of the alley so he can make the turn without falling. The street is dark, filled with shadows and low lighting; except it's not just the dim of night that's crushing Shizuo's clarity of vision, but a hulking shape caught between the narrow walls of the buildings on either side, a shadow looming taller even than the height that lets Shizuo stand above almost everyone he interacts with. There's another figure, too, far smaller and dressed in a sailor uniform, but Shizuo barely glances at the little girl with her back pressed hard against the wall of the alley. He's shouting instead, a wordless roar to draw the monster's attention as he steps forward to plant himself solidly in the entrance to the alley.

" _Hey_ ," and there's heat in his chest, fire in his veins, he can all but feel it crackling out over his shoulders and glowing across his skin. "If you're going to let yourself become a Kishin, that means you're prepared to get hunted down, right?" The shape turns slowly, the heavy tread of something far larger than it should be pivoting to turn the flickering candlelight of glowing eyes on Shizuo; but Shizuo doesn't move, doesn't shift his feet or back down by so much as an inch. His blood is roaring in his veins, his fingers curling into fists at his sides; and it's just as he flexes his hand to make a solid weight of his fingers that he feels the absence of something and realizes what he's missing.

He turns back towards the entrance to the alley. Izaya is standing there, on his feet and looking wholly unharmed; he's not even looking at the Kishin egg, looks as if he's barely spared a moment's attention for the thing. He's staring at Shizuo instead, his arms slack at his sides, his eyes dark, and his feet so decidedly planted that all Shizuo's premonition of panic surges back into him at once, hitting him the harder for his brief moment of distraction.

"Izaya," he shouts, feeling the sound rumble inside his chest before it spills from his throat to echo off the walls around them. Behind him the little girl scrambles to her feet and makes for the relative safety of the main street, but Shizuo doesn't look to see her go; the Kishin's attention is on him, now, the thing's movement aiming for the wall he's made of himself, and it's easier than anything else if the possible victim gets herself well clear of the present danger. He extends a hand, unfolds his fingers to make an open offering of his palm towards Izaya still standing unmoving at the entrance of the alley. "Come _on_."

Izaya's gaze flickers down to Shizuo's open hand, his attention clinging to the cuff of the other's sleeve for a moment; then he looks back up, and the answer is behind the dark of his eyes, is written into the set of his mouth well before he speaks. "You didn't say please, Shizu-chan."

Shizuo can feel his shoulders hunch, can feel his fingers curl in tight against his hand so he's offering Izaya a fist instead of an invitation. "Fuck _you_ ," he snaps. In his periphery a shadow lurches, a shape moves closer; when the Kishin egg huffs an exhale the wind of it ruffles Shizuo's hair. "There's no _time_ for this right now."

"Too bad," Izaya says. He looks almost calm, for once; Shizuo doesn't think he's ever seen the other so absent his usual furious scowl. His head tips back, his chin lifts higher; the illumination of the streetlights casts his features in odd orange tones that strike sparks off the dark of his eyes. "What ever will you do without me, Shizu-chan?"

"Fuck you," Shizuo says again, feeling the words resonate against the inside of his chest like thunder shuddering over some impossible distance. "Damn you, Izaya, _transform_."

Izaya's mouth twitches on a smile. "No."

Shizuo's fingers tighten at his palm. "Fine," he says, and he turns on his heel, shifting the pivot of his motion into a smooth arc of a punch towards the monster lunging towards him. There's a flash of bright behind those dim-glowing eyes, like a burst of sunlight catching off a mirror to blind Shizuo's vision with sunspots; but it doesn't stop the forward swing of his hand, even as he shuts his eyes and turns his head away from the bright. His fist connects with something that feels like skin, that gives like muscle without the resistance of bone underneath, and just as his arm snaps out to full extension there's a crackle against his spine, a shudder of heat that tears through the whole of his body like an earthquake only he can feel. There's a roar in the back of his head, some primal sound spilling unchecked from his lips, and a shock wave around his knuckles, a force enough to blast the creature in front of him backwards by several feet. The thing makes a horrible sound, a scream like metal scraping over itself, and Shizuo blinks his vision free of the momentary blindness while his feet carry him forward over the distance his blow has just created between himself and the Kishin egg. The thing is still on its feet, though it looks unsteady or at least uncertain of itself; Shizuo has no idea how far its reach extends, has no sense of how close he can get while still maintaining his own safety.

It doesn't matter. There's no rationality to his movements, no sense of logic in the strides that close the distance between himself and the shadow-cloaked _thing_ in front of him. His hands are closed on fists, his breathing is hissing in his chest, and his shoulders are straining with rage, with fury, with electricity too strong for him to survive without giving it an outlet. The Kishin is as good an opponent as any, far better than the uncaring concrete or terrified opponents Shizuo faced down in his youth; there's a sense of justice to this, a reason for the power of his blows beyond the usual guilty capitulation to the anger Shizuo knows he should have better control over, the temper he has never yet been able to rein in to a reasonable level. His fists strike like explosions, surging with energy that he's been told is some kind of manifestation of his soul's energy and only knows as the unstoppable force that grips him at times like this, that takes over his limbs and consciousness to slam his fists into whatever stands before him until the spark of rage finally cools to a manageable level again. There's a blow at his side, maybe, maybe the scratch of a clawed hand across his forehead, but Shizuo doesn't stop, doesn't pull back the power behind his swings, and finally his fist slams into shadow, and the creature in front of him makes a sound like paper giving way to the drag of a knife, and the shape Shizuo had backed against the wall in front of him disintegrates, giving way to motes of darkness that flicker and evaporate even as Shizuo pants for air to fill his straining lungs. The shadows unravel into flecks of darkness that rise and vanish into the night, and then there's just the flickering glow of a Kishin soul in front of him, the light from within it giving off a scarlet glow like spilled blood, the light dimming and brightening again as if in time with some unseen heartbeat. It makes Shizuo's shoulders tense to look at it, makes his stomach twist with the start of nausea; but he reaches out anyway, stretching his fingers out to close around the shape. He's half-expecting the light to burn like a flame when he touches it, to flare and sear his skin; but there's nothing at all, he might as well be sweeping his touch through cigarette smoke for all he can feel it, and then he tightens his fingers around the orb itself. His fingers sink into gooey softness, his thumb catches on something almost like scales; but his grip is certain enough to trust as he draws the glowing sphere towards himself, and he doesn't have to think too much about the texture.

 _He's_ not the one who's going to be eating it, after all.

Izaya is still standing in the entrance of the alleyway when Shizuo turns back to look for him. His hands are still at his sides, his shoulders still slack with their own weight; but his expression is different, now, his eyes wider and his lips parted, until the passivity of his pose looks more like shocked disbelief than condescending calm. He's staring at Shizuo without moving, either to step back or draw closer, and he keeps staring as the other comes back towards him, his expression still blank like he can't quite believe what he's seeing. He doesn't say anything, doesn't lift a hand to move; it's only as Shizuo draws within reach that he closes his mouth to swallow, maybe in preparation to say something, and by then his chance to give voice to any kind of a response is already gone, even if he doesn't realize it yet.

It's easy to grab a handful of the front of his jacket, a simple matter for Shizuo to close his fingers into a fist against the soft fur of the lining and heave Izaya bodily up off his feet. Izaya's eyes go wide, his hands finally coming up to clutch desperately at Shizuo's wrist in the first panic of movement, but Shizuo isn't hesitating and he doesn't give the other enough time even to find his balance. He's turning instead, pivoting sharply on one heel to stride towards the wall of the alley, and when he shoves Izaya up against it it's ungently, the motion coming with enough force that Izaya's head ricochets off the concrete and all the air in his lungs gusts out of him with a choking, involuntary sound. His fingers clench at Shizuo's wrist, his mouth opens reflexively for air his spasming lungs can't find, and Shizuo takes a step in closer to hold Izaya back against the wall and growl inches away from the curve of his ear.

" _Listen to me_ ," he says, the words tearing low in his throat so Izaya will hear them clearly even over the gasp of his breathing falling back into its briefly-lost rhythm. "I don't like you. I don't _care_ about you. I'm as unhappy to be stuck with you as you are with me." His fingers tense against the Kishin soul in his hand; he can feel his fingertips sinking into the strange weight of it. He wonders if it's possible to crush a soul with too much force. "But we're partners, and that means I'm supposed to make you a Death Weapon, and the sooner we get enough Kishin souls the sooner I can get _rid_ of you." Izaya's panting, now; he's mostly regained the rhythm of his breath, though his head is still bowed over Shizuo's arm pinning him back to the wall, but he doesn't try to speak.

Shizuo takes a breath. "If you're going to sabotage our assignments, fine. Whatever. I don't need your help if that's all you want to do." He lifts his other hand, the one closed tight around the slippery weight of the Kishin soul, and Izaya's head turns, his shadowed-over gaze sliding to track the glow of the orb in Shizuo's fingers. The light catches strangely off his features, illuminating his expression from the wrong direction and with the wrong color; for a moment his whole face looks like it's drenched in blood, like his hair and lashes and lips are as saturated with the color as the shade of his eyes.

"I don't care if you work with me or not," Shizuo says, and Izaya's gaze jumps up to his face, his lips still parted on the rush of his breathing and his expression unreadable even with the eerie illumination offered by the soul. "But you _will_ eat the souls I collect, even if I have to forcefeed them to you." His fingers tighten against Izaya's jacket, his arm flexes to underscore his words with pressure that makes Izaya flinch and huff a forced exhale. "Got it?"

Izaya stares up at him. His eyes look dark even with the glow of the soul in Shizuo's fingers, his gaze catching against the angle of his lashes to turn his stare sullen and bitter. But there's none of the smirking mockery that was there before, nothing of the vicious hatred Shizuo is so used to seeing in the other's face; all the frustration is resigned, is passive, until Shizuo knows what Izaya will do a moment before he lifts his chin and opens his mouth in silent surrender.

Shizuo doesn't loosen his hold. Izaya's not letting his grip on the other's wrist go any more than he's reaching out to take the Kishin soul, and Shizuo doesn't think he'd trust the other with it anyway; so he reaches out himself to press the glowing shape of it against Izaya's parted lips. Izaya has to open his jaw wider to let Shizuo push the sphere into his mouth but Shizuo doesn't ease the pressure, and Izaya doesn't break eye contact, just keeps staring at Shizuo with those eyes turned the color of blood by the weird illumination. Even as he catches the sphere on his tongue Shizuo doesn't let go; he presses his palm flush against Izaya's lips instead, covering the other's mouth with his hand to keep him from spitting out the soul the moment Shizuo lets him go. Izaya stares at him, his eyes dark with something Shizuo thinks is mostly resentment and only partially some strange heat he can't make sense of; but he closes his mouth, his lips dragging hot over Shizuo's palm, and he swallows deliberately, his throat working hard over the shape of the soul. Shizuo waits for a moment, waits until Izaya has hissed an inhale through his nose instead of his still-covered mouth; and then he draws his hand back, and lets his hold go, and steps back from where he was pinning Izaya to the wall.

"That's one," he says, still holding Izaya's gaze. Izaya's mouth is shut, his jaw set like he never intends to speak again; his eyes look darker with the loss of the soul's illumination, as if they've burnt the color out of themselves and fallen back into inscrutable shadow once more. "Only ninety-nine more to go." Izaya doesn't answer, either by word or action or even a flicker of a blink to break that steady eye contact. But when Shizuo turns away and starts walking back to the main street, he's not surprised when he hears the scuff of footsteps match his after the first two strides.

Whatever rebellion Izaya might offer later, for tonight Shizuo is certain of his surrender.


	5. Marked

Izaya doesn't sleep that night.

It was late already when they left the apartment to hunt down the Kishin egg Shizuo had picked from the list of assignments, past midnight and working into the early hours of the morning when the city streets were at their most quiet and most shadowed. Every word felt like it was shattering some glass-fragile silence, as if each human voice was striking an unbearable blow against something too brittle to withstand the force. Their conversation had been an act of destruction, even if Shizuo hadn't seemed to notice; only appropriate, Izaya supposes, for the creature of unfettered destruction the meister proved himself to be in the fight that followed.

Izaya hadn't intended Shizuo to fight the monster on his own. He was unhappy about being dragged out on an assignment, frustrated by Shizuo all but ignoring him for the entire travel out to the set location; he had intended to let Shizuo struggle for a few seconds, to let the meister reconsider the demanding tone he had taken when he ordered Izaya to transform, to let him feel the full weight of his mortality and uselessness without the support of the weapon at his side. Izaya would have let him suffer, would have waited for the terror of danger to well and truly sink its claws into Shizuo's psyche, would have waited until those dark eyes were wide with horror and that set mouth was soft with true, bone-deep fear; and then he would have transformed, at the first sideways glance, at the first _please_ , would have made himself the hero to sweep aside the threat so vast and unmanageable. Maybe he could even get the better of that unassailable self-control that has so resisted his attempts at possession both unconscious and deliberate, maybe he could fit himself inside those broad shoulders and strong arms and take dominance over them both for the span of the fight. It would have been enjoyable, it would have been _satisfying_ ; Izaya could see it all so clear in his head, could already feel the shift in their dynamic his last-minute salvation would have forced as if it were reality already.

Except it's not reality. Izaya still isn't completely sure what happened, exactly. Everything went precisely as he planned right up until the Kishin egg was bearing down on them, until Shizuo's eyes went wide with the first startled realization that Izaya wasn't going to transform for his casual demand. But then the meister's expression had hardened, his jaw had set and his fingers had tightened, and when he turned it was to swing a punch at the attacker instead of to collapse into pleas at Izaya's feet. The punch should have done nothing, should have all but ricocheted off the monster's resilient form; but it struck home instead, landing with enough force to throw the Kishin egg off its feet entirely and send it crashing into the wall behind it. Shizuo had followed like some embodied force of rage itself, both hands locked into fists at his sides, and he hadn't looked back at Izaya at all, had acted like he didn't notice the absence of a weapon as he beat the enemy apart with nothing but the weight of his tight-balled knuckles. It must be some kind of Soul Force, some part of Izaya realized as he stood in the entrance of the alley forgotten and gaping shock; it must be Shizuo's own wavelength strengthening his body and layering his muscles until he can hit with such force that he appears nearly a weapon in his own right. He didn't seem to feel the absence of Izaya at all; Izaya was still caught breathless with the first rush of surprise when the shadowy form of the Kishin egg unravelled itself into nothing under the onslaught of Shizuo's fists to leave just the glowing red of its soul behind.

Shizuo hadn't given him time to find his voice again. He had moved as fast for Izaya as he had for the Kishin egg, had dragged gravity out from under the other's feet and pinned him to a wall and _growled_ demands for obedience that Izaya's scattered thoughts had no hope of resisting. He was as trapped by his own shock as by the weight of Shizuo's hand shoving against his chest, and in the end there was nothing for him to do but submit, to open his mouth and let the meister force the glow of the Kishin soul past his lips and down his throat. Shizuo had kept his hand pressed against Izaya's mouth a moment after, as if he didn't trust the other to swallow the soul without being pushed to it; his palm was wet, tacky with sticky liquid that Izaya tasted against his mouth after the meister had dropped him and turned away as if to abandon him after the fight as thoroughly as he did during it. His mouth tastes like iron, his lips are smeared with the coppery tang of blood from Shizuo's torn palm; the meister must have dug his fingernails in too hard against his skin, must have tightened his grip and torn his palms open under the force of blunt nails in the span of those heartstopping minutes of combat. Izaya tastes metal at his mouth the whole walk home, like Shizuo has printed his skin with the weight of the blade Izaya refused to transform into, as if to force a reminder onto him of what he is, of what he should be, of how little Shizuo cares if he fails to do what he's meant to. It sets Izaya's jaw and burns bitter fury into his veins; but Shizuo doesn't bother speaking to him when they get back, just proceeds down the hallway towards the bathroom without so much as acknowledging Izaya's presence behind him. Izaya trails him without breaking the silence either, turning off to retreat behind the door to his own bedroom while Shizuo is rinsing the blood and dust of combat off his skin, and he licks the taste of iron from his lips and lets his anger freeze to icy intention in his veins.

It's not hard to keep himself awake. Izaya never sleeps well even on a good night, and less when he's seething frustration with every breath, and with the lateness of the hour Shizuo must be more tired even than usual, because he makes straight for his bedroom after his shower and doesn't emerge again, even when Izaya lets his waiting stretch from five minutes to fifteen, to thirty, to an hour. After an hour and a half has passed in absolute silence but for the hiss of his own breathing in the enclosed space of his room he finally unfolds, and gets to his feet, and goes to ease open the door of his bedroom.

Shizuo's door is open, left cracked by the few inches the other seems to prefer while he sleeps at night. Izaya doesn't understand why - it seems an absurd show of vulnerability just to leave the door unlocked, much less actually open into an invitation, however slight - but it's to his advantage at the moment, as it saves him the need to work the latch open with as little sound as possible. All he has to do is pad across the span of the hallway, his bare feet a silent whisper of friction on the floor, and reach out to press the very tips of his fingers against the weight of the door. It opens at a touch, the hinges sliding smooth and silent over themselves, and then Izaya's standing in the doorway of Shizuo's darkened room with nothing but air between himself and the sleeping form of his meister.

The room is brighter than Izaya's. Shizuo leaves his blinds drawn up the same way he leaves his door cracked, and the lack of cover over the glass leaves moonlight free to stream in over the blankets on the bed and splash itself to pale illumination against Shizuo's face. Shizuo is asleep on his back, one arm thrown up over his head and the other sprawled wide across the sheets with his wrist hanging over the edge of the bed; his blankets are tangled around his waist, leaving the pale of his thin undershirt to cover his chest and shoulders and ride up just over the angle of one hip. Even his legs aren't completely under the sheets; he has one foot left uncovered, the span of his calf up to his knee bare for the glow of the moonlight, until the blankets are more of an afterthought than anything else. Izaya doesn't understand how he's not cold - Izaya would be, in that situation - but then maybe that goes along with that absurd soul wavelength, maybe Shizuo glows with inhuman body temperature as much as monstrous strength. It makes as much sense as anything else, really, and besides it doesn't make a difference at the moment; Izaya's not here to wonder about Shizuo's sleeping habits.

He hesitates in the doorway for a long moment. He hadn't finalized any kind of a plan even in his head; the chill fury in his veins spent his patient hours murmuring of knife edges, of the press of a blade into flesh, of tearing open skin and muscle to seek in pain the acknowledgement that Shizuo so completely denied him during the fight earlier. The Kishin egg may have done nothing but minimal damage to the other's body but Izaya can do far worse, Izaya has the means and the opportunity and it will certainly get him thrown out of the Academy but that hardly seems to matter, so long as he can attain some kind of revenge. Except that now, standing in the doorway, the hiss of rage in him seems softer, more distant, like it's fading over a horizon and leaving him alone, empty of even the form of the weapon that has always seemed so near-to-hand, before. Izaya isn't sure he could transform right now even if he wanted to, and he's suddenly not at all sure he _does_ want to; the vicious desire for revenge seems excessive, here, with Shizuo so completely vulnerable in front of him. It's as if the sheer variety of options for Izaya's actions saps all the pleasure from them; he could do anything he wants without restraint, without resistance, and that idea itself strips all the potential satisfaction his imagination so recklessly offered before.

He steps forward after a minute. It seems silly to keep standing in the doorway, as if he can do anything at all over the gap of the distance between them even if he knew what he wanted to do. His imagination offers suggestions that fall with every noiseless step he takes: if he's not going to actually attack Shizuo that still leaves him other options, depending on how deeply the other sleeps. He could ease the blankets free of the other's hold to leave him sprawled uncovered but for his shirt and boxers; if he's soundly enough asleep maybe Izaya could get those free as well, could take a handful of pictures for blackmail material to give himself the upper hand in any future conflicts. Or something simple, straightforward: a permanent marker filling in the angle of dark eyebrows, or scrawling across the line of his jaw, or smeared to insult over the arch of his cheekbones. It would be a minor inconvenience, petty and childish, Izaya knows; but it's the most he can think of as he draws closer, and then he pauses at the edge of Shizuo's bed and looks down at the meister's expression gone heavy with the weight of sleep.

Shizuo looks softer, like this. Izaya is used to seeing him with a scowl at his lips and a crease in his forehead; with those absent and smoothed away into unconscious peace he looks younger, calmer, almost gentle. There's a softness to his hair tangling against the pillow, a shadow clinging against his lashes to lay heavy across his cheeks; his lips are parted on his breathing, the curve of them very slightly damp as his inhales and exhales fall into the slow, heavy weight of dreams. His shoulders are relaxed, his whole body given over to the support of the bed under him; the hand over his head is turned palm-up so Izaya can see the dark crescents of bruised-in injury running across Shizuo's palm from the weight of his fingernails against the skin. Izaya tastes iron on his tongue, feels heat when he inhales; but Shizuo doesn't stir, his breathing doesn't shift. Izaya might as well not even be here at all, for how much effect he has on the peace of the other's sleep.

Izaya stares at Shizuo for a long time. He could do it, he tells himself; he could let his fingers collapse into the razor edge of a knifeblade, could reach out and tug the blanket free of Shizuo's hip, could find a pen from the array across the other's desk and drag a spill of ink across those clean cheekbones, over the part of those soft lips. But there's an ache starting in his chest, a dull weight of pressure like pain bruising in against his ribcage until he wonders if Shizuo's knuckles did more damage than he thought they did, if there's something more than the bruise at the back of his head and minor scrapes over his shoulders from the other shoving him back against the wall to speak to the effect of the meister's touch on him. It shouldn't have taken this long to begin hurting, anyway, and it shouldn't be getting worse, shouldn't be gaining force and power the longer Izaya stands looking down at Shizuo asleep in front of him, staring at how _content_ the other looks when he's doesn't know Izaya is watching him.

"Fuck," Izaya says, framing the word at his lips more than actually giving it voice, and he turns away with his hands still slack at his sides and with his chest aching as if he has driven his weapon form into his own flesh rather than let it drag leaden weight in his veins. His footsteps are louder in his retreat than they were on his arrival, but behind him Shizuo doesn't stir, and before him is the open angle of the door, and then he's stepping out into the hallway with his heart hammering in his chest and his meister still sound asleep in bed behind him. Izaya's fingers flex, curling in towards his palms like he's reaching for the handle of a nonexistent weapon, like he's tightening his knuckles into a fist for a fight with no one but himself; and then he lets them go slack, lets them fall heavy at his sides along with the tension across his shoulders, and steps across the hallway to return to the confines of his own bedroom and the protection of a locked door.

He doesn't pull Shizuo's door shut behind him. He doubts Shizuo will notice the difference, but at least he can leave his mark on Shizuo's space even if he can't get traction on Shizuo himself.


	6. Sense

Izaya is quiet in class the day after their first assignment.

It makes Shizuo nervous. He didn't even see Izaya the next morning; by the time he woke up the apartment was dark and still, in the way of a space left empty for an hour or more, and there's no trace of Izaya in the kitchen, or the living room, or even in his bedroom, when Shizuo knocks against the door in case of a response. Shizuo made breakfast alone, and ate alone, and walked to Shibusen wondering if today's instructor will understand if Shizuo explains that he lost his weapon partner overnight. But when he comes in the door of the classroom there Izaya is, sitting far up in the back corner of the room with his shoulders hunched over his desk and his phone in his hands, looking completely ordinary as far as Shizuo can see. It makes his worry evaporate, coalesces his concern into irritation instead, and when he makes for the same back corner it's without thinking about it at all, acting on immediate impulse instead of a coordinated approach.

"Hey," he says as he climbs the last of the stairs to turn down the long bench that Izaya's perched on. "What the hell are you doing?"

Izaya glances up at him. Shizuo is expecting a sneer, maybe the sharp edge of a mocking laugh; but there's just that one quick glance, a flicker of dark eyes under darker hair, and then he's looking back down to his phone without even making an attempt at argument. "Waiting for class to start," he says, his voice as stripped-down flat as that brief glimpse of his expression was. "Just like you are."

Shizuo blinks. He can almost feel the adrenaline coming alight in his veins hesitating, as if it's stalling out against a wall he didn't know was there. "Where were you this morning?" he says, the words coming a little more softly than his first demand. "I knocked on your door but you didn't answer."

"I wasn't there," Izaya says. He doesn't look up from his phone at all this time. His tone is still absolutely flat, as if it's been sheared off along a razor's edge. "I came to class early."

"Oh." That seems obvious, now that Shizuo considers it, but he can't get traction on that frustration either, not when he can't tell what's going on behind the shadowy weight of Izaya's hair. "I didn't know where you were."

"Clearly," Izaya says, with a flicker of his usual bite on the words. "Next time I'll write you a note informing you of my location." He glances at the empty bench next to him, his chin still tipped down far enough that Shizuo can't see his eyes clearly. "Are you going to sit down or do you plan to loom all class?"

"I'm not-" Shizuo starts, and then there's the boom of the instructor's voice from the front: "Welcome, welcome! It is the time for class to begin!" and any response he might have offered is lost to the sound of the teacher's voice calling them all to attention. Shizuo does sit down, half-expecting Izaya to smirk some sharp-edged comment in his direction; but Izaya just keeps his head ducked over his phone as he turns it to silent and leans back to fit it into his pocket, and then he's leaning in over the desk again and fixing his gaze on the instructor as if he's entirely forgotten about Shizuo next to him. It's weird to be so thoroughly ignored, the weirder when it's coming from Izaya; usually Shizuo can barely pay attention to the instructor for the low hiss of Izaya's taunting commentary from the other end of the bench. To have that usual perpetual distraction so entirely removed strains discomfort along his spine, as if there's an actual void next to him instead of just the absence of his weapon partner's voice; he keeps glancing sideways, feeling as if maybe Izaya will vanish if he looks away too long, or as if maybe that's not Izaya at all but someone else entirely, the same in form and face and voice but stripped of that sharp edge Shizuo has come to associate with the very core of who Izaya is. It stresses him the whole of class, maybe more so even than teasing would do, until when the instructor booms out "Heiwajima-kun" Shizuo doesn't realize he's being called immediately. He's in the middle of frowning sideways at Izaya's set expression, trying to pick some kind of understanding out of the set of the other's lips and the line of his jaw; it's not until the teacher continues "And Orihara-kun" that Shizuo realizes they're being gestured to the front of the class. He blinks hard and shakes himself back into focus as he pushes abruptly to his feet; but even then Izaya doesn't say anything, even though he's staring at Shizuo when the other looks back at him. He waits at the end of the row, and lets Shizuo take the lead down to the front of the room, and when Shizuo draws to a halt in front of the instructor Izaya is right behind him, hovering just over his right shoulder like he's the model weapon partner Shizuo has never once known him to be. Shizuo wonders for a moment if Izaya's sick, if it's the effect of a fever or a bad headache that's so fundamentally shifted his attitude; and then the instructor says "So, Heiwajima-kun!" and Shizuo has to abandon the hum of distraction in his thoughts for looking up and focusing on the topic at hand.

The instructor doesn't appear at all fazed by Shizuo's obvious distraction. He's beaming, in fact, smiling all over his face in the wide, friendly way he smiles at everyone that Shizuo has ever seen him interact with. "You have Soul Force with your attacks, yes?"

Shizuo blinks. "What?" He remembers the name from a lecture a week and a half ago; but more clearly he remembers Izaya hissing _more like_ brute _force_ from the other side of the table, and Shizuo kicking him, and Izaya shoving back, and both of them getting sent out of class to cool off in the hallway. "Like, fighting without a weapon?"

"Yes," Izaya says from over his shoulder, his voice so deliberately flat it carries a measure of judgment all by itself. He's not meeting Shizuo's gaze when the other looks back at him; his attention is fixed ahead, holding to the instructor like he's the most important thing in the room. "Yes, he can use Soul Force. He did in the last assignment we went on."

"Yes, yes," the instructor agrees, nodding as if Izaya is confirming some well-known fact. "You will demonstrate for us! Fighting with weapon, fighting with soul wavelength, both together is very effective!"

Shizuo frowns. "Together? I've only just-"

"Sure," Izaya says, speaking loudly so his voice carries over Shizuo's. "Let's do it, Shizu-chan." He's still looking straight ahead, watching the instructor instead of Shizuo; but there's a measure of tension against his jaw, a set of strain just under the skin, and some of the stress in Shizuo's shoulders eases at the sight of it. It's ironic that seeing Izaya stressed would be such a source of relief, odd that the lilt of that syrupy nickname would be a comfort under the circumstances; but however much he may dislike it, Shizuo knows better how to deal with a vicious, seething weapon partner than with the blank doll Izaya had appeared to be when he first came in.

He clenches his teeth, feels the tension of irritation skip down his spine and strain over his shoulders. "Fine," he says, and holds his hand out sideways, his palm turned up and open towards Izaya. "Transform."

There's a pause. For a moment Shizuo can feel the hesitation hanging heavy in the air, can feel expectation going long as Izaya looks at his open hand, as Izaya doesn't shift. Shizuo wonders what he'll do if Izaya refuses to transform again, wonders if Izaya would have the nerve to refuse in front of a full class, wonders if Izaya ever runs out of nerve to do anything he wants. But then the other ducks his head, turning away from what little clarity Shizuo could get on his expression, and when he moves it's to lift his hand, to reach out for Shizuo's palm as his skin glows to incandescence for a brief moment. His fingers extend, almost touch Shizuo's skin; and then he flickers, his outline gives way entirely, and it's the solid weight of a knife handle that lands against Shizuo's palm instead of the touch of human fingertips.

Shizuo's vision flickers for a moment. There's a drag at the back of his thoughts, like his whole body has gone suddenly weightier or as if there's a magnet just behind him pulling at the iron in his blood to urge his whole consciousness backwards by an inch; but he braces his feet, and wrenches himself free, and in the back of his head Izaya's influence subsides to a sulky quiet, like it has been every time Shizuo has tried wielding him before.

"Ready?" the instructor asks. He's still smiling; his expression hasn't wavered at all, either during the too-long pause before Izaya transformed or while Shizuo was blinking the effect of Izaya's involuntary attempt at possession from the back of his thoughts. He shifts his feet, widens his stance, and suddenly his whole body is tipping forward over the balls of his feet, like he's ready to lunge in any direction at a moment's notice. Shizuo blinks, startled by this sudden shift in appearance, and the instructor - _Simon_ , Izaya's voice sighs from the back of his head, like an echo of knowledge Shizuo hasn't bothered to remember - grins and lifts a hand to gesture.

"Come on!" His smile is just as wide as it was before; Shizuo can't explain why it is that it seems somehow infinitely more threatening now with just a shift in the other's stance. "Come, Soul Force and weapon together."

Shizuo frowns and tightens his fingers against the handle of the knife in his hand. "Won't I hurt you?"

 _No_ , Izaya says at the same time Simon laughs "No, no!" _You'll never manage to land a blow even if you try all day_. Izaya sounds distant, faintly bored; it's as if he's leaning in over his phone again, even while the weight of his presence is fitting into the back of Shizuo's head instead of taking on an immediate human form.

 _How do you know?_ Shizuo thinks back at Izaya with as much force as he can press into thought. _Are you going to try to screw this up too?_

 _I'm not screwing anything up_ , Izaya snaps back with enough force that Shizuo can hear the whipcrack of irritation under the words. _Just try to attack him, if you can't use your eyes to see for yourself._

 _Shut up_ , Shizuo thinks, but the words feel more like habit than true anger, and when he takes a step forward it's relief prickling against his spine instead of aggression. It's good to hear Izaya sound like himself again, even if that self happens to make Shizuo want to put his fist through a wall; at least it's one less thing to worry about in the moment, and as Simon takes a step forward Shizuo realizes he needs as much focus on what he's doing as he can get. The instructor is taller than he looks, and he looks tall enough; the step forward he takes spans far more distance than Shizuo expected it to and leaves him suddenly caught in close quarters that are too near for him to draw the weapon in his hand back into a clean blow.

"Shit," Shizuo blurts, and _Soul Force_ Izaya orders from the back of his head, the suggestion coming so in-sync with the motion of Shizuo's free hand that his knuckles are curled into a fist, are sketching out an arc in the air while Izaya is still hissing the judgment of _idiot_ at the back of his head. Shizuo's fist collides with Simon's chest, the jolt thudding all through his body like it's trying to shake him loose from reality; and Simon stumbles a half-step backwards, laughing as if Shizuo had smacked him with an open palm instead of thrown the full-panic weight of his whole body and soul behind the blow.

"Like that!" Simon tells him. "Did you see that?" to the classroom, turning his head half away as if his attention is veering aside. Shizuo's heart is racing in his chest, adrenaline spiking hot all through his veins as if he's just stopped from a dead sprint; he can feel himself shaking very slightly, like the whole world is electrified and he's humming with the current. Simon turns back to him and steadies his feet once more. "Again. With the weapon partner."

Shizuo nods, the nonverbal acknowledgment the best he can offer with his heart racing so fast it feels a little like he's going to pass out from the dizzy spin of his thoughts. Simon is waiting, this time, maintaining a gap more than enough for Shizuo to bring the knife in his hand up in front of him; but Shizuo still takes a step back, gaining himself an extra stride for his approach as his tightens his grip around the hilt of the knife in his palm.

 _It's not that hard_ , Izaya hisses from the back of his thoughts. Shizuo gets a strong impression of a dark form leaning against the support of a wall, arms wrapped protectively around knees drawn up in front of a fragile chest. It's as if he's seeing an afterimage of that first day of classes, when he turned around to see Izaya staring at him from the corner of the room; except it's resignation on the other's tone now instead of aggressive bite, exhausted frustration instead of a taunt daring Shizuo to a fight. _Aim the pointy end at him and_ go.

 _I know_ , Shizuo thinks, but his grip feels strange when he angles the knife up in front of him, the weight of his arm feels wrong. It's strange to lead with the inside of his hand instead of the outward force of his knuckles; he can feel his hand twisting, trying to turn itself into the more familiar approach as he braces his feet at the floor.

"Come on!" Simon laughs, still smiling bright all over his face; and Shizuo lets the adrenaline in his chest take him over, and goes. His foot hits the ground, the jolt of impact runs up through his whole body like it's jarring him awake; and instinct overrides focus, and his movements fall into the familiar swing of violence learned over years instead of the few weeks he's had since he joined Shibusen. It's his left arm he leads with, the force of his knuckles that he offers; and even then, as Simon sidesteps without any visible effort and says "Your weapon!" in a cheerful reminder, it's Shizuo's fist he offers instead of the edge of Izaya's knife form. There's a shout in his head, wordless frustration from the weapon at the back of his thoughts, and then Shizuo's arm tenses and there's that jolt of his Soul Force again, a spike of strength that locks his fingers into reflexive force against the hilt of the weapon and cuts off the sound of Izaya's protest like it was never there at all. Shizuo's knuckles hit fabric, glance against the resistance of a body, and Simon takes a step to the side again, reaching out to catch at Shizuo's wrist and stop his forward motion as immediately as if he was never moving at all.

"No, no," he's saying, shaking his head in patient correction. "This is your soul wavelength still, you should be-" and then Shizuo's grip falls in on itself, his fingers closing on empty air as the knife in his hand disintegrates and reshapes itself into a human form instead of the weapon it was.

"What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?" Izaya snaps, his voice sharp and harsh while the light of transformation is still clinging to his hair and shoulders. His hands are balled into fists at his sides, his chin is tipped down to cast his face to shadow; whatever calm he was holding to at the start of class is gone now, his store of patience apparently entirely run through. "Are you honestly an idiot? Can't you hold a single thought in your head for more than two seconds?"

"Shut up," Shizuo growls back, twisting his wrist hard to pull free of Simon's hold on his now-empty hand and taking a step forward towards Izaya's glare. "If you let me get any experience using you in combat I could do it."

"You don't even know _how_ to use me," Izaya fires back. He's not moving forward but he's not retreating either; he's meeting Shizuo glare-for-glare even as the meister's forward motion halves the distance between them. "That's the only reason you don't have a problem with my soul possession, is because you're too damn _stupid_ to do anything. A _meister_? You're no better than a thug if you don't have a weapon partner."

"I _want_ a weapon partner," Shizuo spits. Simon reaches out for his shoulder, offering some soothing sound that Shizuo entirely ignores, because Izaya is still staring at him, his eyes still snapping with crimson electricity like he's daring Shizuo to reach out for him, to unleash the crackle of his soul wavelength into the framework of the other's currently-human body the same way he did to his weapon form. "You don't know _how_ to partner with anyone. How am I supposed to be a team with you if I can't even trust you to transform when I tell you to?"

"Maybe you should try _asking_." Izaya's still not making any move to retreat; Shizuo is leaning in closer to him, so near their foreheads are nearly touching, but Izaya's just staring right back at him, his gaze level and jaw set without any trace of easing. "Instead of ordering me around like I'm some tool for you to use at your will."

"I don't think you're-"

"Okay!" Simon shouts, his voice booming so loud Shizuo startles and Izaya flinches from the sound. His arm interposes between them, the weight of his forearm pressing hard against Shizuo's chest to urge him away, and Shizuo has no choice but to stumble backwards by a handful of inches, leaving Izaya staring fury at him from a few feet away. "Enough, enough, fighting is no good, especially between partners!" One hand closes at Shizuo's shoulder, large fingers tightening to press an unshakeable hold into his arm; another goes sideways to do the same to Izaya and pull him forward with gentle force. Izaya tries to resist for a moment, Shizuo can see him fighting to maintain his footing; but Simon doesn't seem to notice the attempt, and as he keeps urging it's Izaya who stumbles forward in submission to the other's force.

"No fighting," Simon repeats, and he's pushing them both towards the doorway now, still smiling and nodding as if he's not bodily urging two unwilling students forward across the classroom. "Take the rest of the day off from studying. Stress is hard to deal with, I know." Shizuo would protest this implication - if there's stress in his life it's _from_ Izaya, not _affecting_ him - but Simon doesn't give them a chance to respond at all as he walks them towards the door. "Eat lunch. Eating is good for bonding, improves relationships." Simon lets them both go at once and reaches to push the heavy door open and hold it there with one hand as he turns back to smile beneficently at them. "Homework assignment is eat sushi together!"

"Right," Izaya drawls, sounding patently unconvinced even under this seeming capitulation; but Shizuo's looking at Simon, and at the absolute focus behind those smiling eyes, and when he says "Okay" it's far slower than Izaya's and far heavier with sincerity. Izaya's head turns towards him, his expression creasing into confusion at this capitulation; but Shizuo keeps looking at Simon until Izaya looks to him too, and it's only then that Simon's smile goes wide enough to ease some of that absolute focus behind his eyes.

"Good!" He gestures towards the open door and nods encouragement to them both. "Go, go! Food is important!" He keeps smiling as they leave - Izaya first, Shizuo following in his wake - and he stays there as they move away down the hallway, still beaming after them as they go. Shizuo glances back, once, just before they round the corner, and Simon's eyes are still on them, like he intends to watch them until they're well out of sight.

Izaya speaks first, just as they're rounding the corner of the hallway to head towards the front of the school. "Lunch, huh?" he says, keeping his gaze fixed deliberately ahead rather than looking at Shizuo at all. "It can't be even eleven o'clock. What was he thinking?"

Shizuo shrugs dismissal of Izaya's mostly-rhetorical question. "Whatever," he says. "If he says lunch, let's get lunch. Do you like sushi?"

" _Sushi_ ," Izaya says, his tone resonant with mocking laughter. "It's _lunch_ , not a _date_."

Shizuo scowls at him. "Fine, where do _you_ want to go?"

Izaya lifts his hands to offer palm-up surrender without looking to meet Shizuo's gaze. "No need to get huffy. Sushi it is."

Shizuo rolls his eyes. "You are such a pain," he says.

Izaya huffs something that might almost be a laugh, if it weren't so soft. "You're not my favorite person either," he says. "Maybe we'll feel different after we eat lunch and 'improve our bond.'"

Shizuo rather doubts this will be the case. But they're stepping out through the front doors of the school, and the sunlight is warm on his skin, and really, maybe being outside of class for the afternoon isn't so bad after all. Izaya looks sideways at him, flashing bright attention from under the shadow of his hair, and his mouth quirks onto a smirk that Shizuo suspects to be at his expense; but Shizuo doesn't care right now.

It's better than quiet. At least aggression he knows how to make sense of.


	7. Commit

"We've been making incredible progress!" Shinra enthuses as he follows Izaya down the hallway towards the assignment board. "Working with Celty has been a dream come true. She has so much natural talent, sometimes I feel more like she's wielding me than the other way around!"

"Maybe you're not enough meister for her," Izaya suggests, fully aware he sounds bitter and not caring enough to try to strip the bite from his words. "She could meet someone better and abandon you at the drop of a hat."

Shinra does not take this as harshly as Izaya half-wishes he would. "No, no," he laughs, and waves a hand to push aside the suggestion. "She's going to stick with me until I make her a Death Weapon, at least. That gives me plenty of time to persuade her that I'm the only man for her!"

"You sound like a perfect match."

"We are!" Shinra chirps, either utterly oblivious or utterly uncaring of Izaya's sarcasm. "And you got a new meister, too. I knew you'd find someone!"

"I didn't _find_ him," Izaya says. "He was _forced_ on me. Even you were a better meister than he is."

"Haha, don't say that!" Shinra laughs. "You've completed an assignment already, right? We never went out into the field together. You must be a lot more compatible with Heiwajima-kun than you think."

"We're not," Izaya says, biting the words off short enough that anyone other than Shinra would know to let the subject drop. "He doesn't know how to use me. He just fought by himself, he didn't even try to wield me."

Shinra shrugs. "You still got a soul out of it, right? I'd think you'd be happy for the chance to let him do the work for you. The sooner you finish the sooner you can graduate, right?"

"I don't want him to _do the work for me_ ," Izaya snaps. The assignment board is coming into view at the end of the hallway; there's a few students lingering in front of it, young meisters joined at the hip to their weapons as if they might encounter danger on the school grounds and the newest students with their _Meister_ or _Weapon_ designation pinned to the front of their clothes, all of them gazing up at the tags with their eyes wide and wistful, as if there's anything of particular interest in going out and fighting variations on the same monsters they discuss in their classes. They look up at Shinra and Izaya's approach, the whole of them shifting backwards with the stunned awe new students always have for the older ones; Izaya glances at them for a moment but Shinra ignores them completely, beelining for the assignment board with barely an off-hand "Excuse me" as he maneuvers around the younger students to approach.

"I still don't understand what you're so upset about," Shinra says, still in that chipper, upbeat tone that makes his words strangely sincere, as if he really just can't grasp the inner workings of Izaya's head. He reaches out to touch one of the assignments, squinting in consideration. "Is it that you never really wanted to be a Death Weapon? There's all kinds of responsibilities that come with that, and you always said you weren't interested with me."

"I'm _not_ interested," Izaya snaps. "But I'm supposed to demonstrate my proficiency as a weapon before they'll graduate me, and it's either become a Death Weapon or be stuck with my protozoan of a meister for _years_. At least this way I'll become one of Lord Death's weapons and be free of Shizu-chan sooner."

"Well then there's no problem!" Shinra abandons the first assignment to stretch and reach for one of the higher ones and tug it free of the board; it's marked with a filled-in star and the outline of a second, a step up from the one-star missions he was looking at originally. "If he can fight on his own and is going to give you the souls you'll both be approved as competent sooner. It's not like _he_ can do anything with the souls himself, he might as well give them to you."

"But he's _not_ proving his competence," Izaya grates. "He's just beating Kishin eggs apart with his bare hands, that's got nothing to do with being a good meister."

"Hm." Shinra lifts a hand to push his glasses up his nose and tips his head to blink at Izaya past the weight of the frames. "You know, technically being a good meister is about your efficacy in taking down those that have become Kishin eggs. It shouldn't matter if he does that with a weapon or not, right? If he can get rid of them singlehandedly, then…" Shinra trails off into a comprehensive shrug for the whole implication of his statement.

Izaya can feel his teeth set against each other. "It _does_ matter," he says past the brace of his fixed scowl. "I don't want him to just _hand_ souls to me like I'm completely useless for anything but being his accessory."

"Just tell him you want to work with him next time," Shinra tells him, as if it's that simple, as if Izaya's partnership is as blissfully, disgustingly straightforward as his own. "He seems like a nice guy in meister classes, I'm sure he'd work with you if you asked."

Izaya's teeth grind against each other. He can feel the ache of the pressure at the back of his skull and weighting hard at his temples. "That's not the _point_."

"I think I will take this one," Shinra says abruptly, looking down at the tag in his hand as if the conversation is over just because he's lost interest in it. "I've got to go catch up with Celty and make sure she thinks we can take on the challenge, but I'm sure she has the ability to pull it off." He looks up to Izaya's face, beaming like he doesn't notice the tight set of the other's jaw on irritation, and reaches out to pat vaguely at his shoulder. "The two of you will work something out. Good luck!" And he's turning, pivoting on a heel and striding away down the hallway before Izaya can ease his jaw enough to let him force the coherency of words past his lips. By the time Izaya has found his voice again Shinra is gone, along with the majority of the younger students; there's just a lone pair left when Izaya looks around again, and they both turn away to hurry down the hall as soon as he makes eye contact. Izaya's left with the empty hallway, and the looming weight of the assignment board, and the dozens of tags both unclaimed and marked with the stamp of a partnership.

Izaya looks up at them for a long moment. The tags span the board nearly to the ceiling; several of the assignments are well out of reach in the immediate sense as well as in terms of the power level required, forming a scattershot of missions left only for long-term weapon partners or the solo Death Weapons who live in the city or visit the school. There are more the farther down Izaya looks, and more stamps visible; by the bottom row every tag is marked with red from an opportunistic older student or an overenthusiastic new pairing. The first available tag is at Izaya's eye-level, another one of the star-and-a-half assignments like the one Shinra took; but those are usually reserved for experienced partners, those who have at least two or three dozen Kishin souls already collected in their pursuit of the full hundred needed to make a Death Weapon. Izaya and Shizuo's last fight was a single solid star - Izaya had expected it to be easy, once he and Shizuo worked together, but he's never even considered taking on something more challenging.

 _It's not like you even fought last time_ , the back of his mind hisses, the words cutting bone-deep against the inside of his thoughts. _Your precious meister handled the threat all on his own. He didn't need you at_ all.

Izaya frowns hard at the tag. There's some text written across it, a brief summary of the attack that was reported and the known traits of the new Kishin egg; but he's not reading it at all, barely notices that there even is text. He's thinking instead, guessing at the strength of the younger pairs who take on full-star missions together, trying to estimate his own untested power against theirs, and surely he can make up the difference of a half star on his own, right? He could probably do a partial transformation and be enough help to let them complete the mission, if Shizuo refuses to wield him -

 _If he needs your help even then,_ that voice tears at him. _Maybe he's strong enough on his own that he doesn't need you at all_. Izaya scowls, his whole expression going tense on frustration; and then there's a shout from the other end of the hallway: "Izaya-kun!" in a clear, carrying voice that Izaya wishes he didn't feel resonate all down the length of his spine like he's a struck bell.

"Shut up," he says, to Shizuo or himself he doesn't know which, and reaches to drag the tag off the board. It's heavier than he expected, the wooden weight of it solid in his palm, and he's turning just as Shizuo draws into range, reaching out to shove the tag hard against the meister's chest before he looks up to glare shadows at the other.

"Sign this one out," he says, tasting command sweet at the back of his tongue. Shizuo blinks at him, confusion dominating his features more than obedience before he looks down at the tag Izaya is shoving against his shirt; Izaya only holds onto it for a moment, he's letting his grip go slack almost before Shizuo reflexively lifts a hand to take the tag himself. "I have better things to do with my time than wait for you to make up your mind. If you won't pick missions at least have the decency to check them out for us."

Shizuo frowns at him. "It's only been three days since the last one, what's your problem?"

"You are," Izaya tells him. "Sign that out, Shizu-chan, and we'll both be that much closer to a solution." He turns without waiting for a response, turning to walk away down the hallway in the opposite direction that Shinra disappeared; he has nowhere to go in particular, nothing he needs to do at the school that he hasn't already finished for the day, but he doesn't slow and he doesn't turn back, not until he's three hallways away and has left both Shizuo's frown and the weight of the assignment board behind him.

At the moment, it's not about having a destination as much as it is about the leaving.


	8. Partners

The second fight is a lot harder than the first.

For once, it's not Izaya's fault. He transformed almost as soon as they left the apartment, shifting the moment Shizuo cleared his throat and glanced at him; Shizuo never even got the chance to voice the request at his lips before the weight of Izaya's weapon form was landing heavy and electric with heat against his palm. The struggle for power that comes with touching the switchblade is brief, over almost as soon as it begins; it feels almost performative, like Izaya is only going through the motions to make sure Shizuo's defenses are as strong as ever. Shizuo rebuffs them without even thinking about it, effecting the mental equivalent of pinning Izaya to the floor one-handed, and Izaya subsides into complete silence in the back of his head. There's no snarky commentary but neither is there the icy sulking that Shizuo had feared; it's just calm, peaceful in a way, until by the time they make it to the outskirts of the city Shizuo has almost entirely forgotten there's someone else sharing the space of his thoughts. He's not thinking about anything in particular - the splash of color from the setting sun radiating across the sky, maybe some idle consideration of what he's going to do when they get back from this assignment - and there's almost no warning at all for the attack, just a cut-off _Shizu-_ in the back of his head followed immediately by a burst of agony at Shizuo's thigh. Shizuo grunts startled pain, twisting on his other leg to see the source of the injury, and there's a whip-quick flicker of movement as the Kishin egg that just tore a slash into his skin skitters backwards and out of reach.

"Shit," Shizuo says aloud, and _Izaya, be ready!_ in his head, the snap of command coming easy to his thoughts in a reflexive reaction to the burst of pain.

 _I_ am _ready_ , Izaya snaps back. _There was nothing I could have done about that, you have to pay attention._

 _I am_ , Shizuo offers, but his focus is elsewhere, centering on the shape of the shadowy thing moving in front of them. It's hard to make it out from the darkness that surrounds them; it's low to the ground, no higher than knee-level as it whips over the dirt, and it has too many legs, far more than the two their last opponent showed, as if it's an oversized centipede more than a human-shaped creature.

 _They all look different_ , Izaya informs him, snapping the words off with a haste that would be unintelligible were they speaking aloud. As it is Shizuo gets the information almost as quickly as Izaya offers it, as if the words are being forced into his mind directly rather than requiring any level of interpretation. _It doesn't matter what it looks like, it'll attack again if you let it._ Move _!_

"Shut up," Shizuo growls aloud, taking some satisfaction in the taste of the words on his tongue and the way they rumble against the inside of his chest, but he _is_ moving, striding forward in two long paces with complete disregard for the ache all across his injured leg. He's bleeding, he thinks, he can feel his skin going hot and sticky with the ooze of blood seeping into his torn pants, but it doesn't matter; it's not enough damage to limit his range of movement, anyway, and he's drawing closer to remove the gap of distance between himself and their opponent. The thing flinches back, like it's considering escape, and then rears up over some number of back legs to swipe at Shizuo with those that line its front. Shizuo's swinging already, bringing his fist forward to slam against the thing's main body; but it lurches sideways, his knuckles barely graze it, and in return three clawed feet catch and tear long stripes of pain from his shoulder down nearly to his elbow.

" _Ow_ ," Shizuo snaps, and _Faster, you have to be_ faster, Izaya's voice chastises from the back of his head. _Aim at where it_ will _be, not where it_ is _, you'll just get yourself torn up like this_. Shizuo stumbles backwards by a step, shaking his arm out to shed the distraction of pain and replace it with a surge of adrenaline instead, and in his head: _You're too slow, pay attention, you're not quick enough, lift your hand, you have to-_

"SHUT UP!" Shizuo shouts, loud enough that the sound echoes off the buildings marking out the fringe of the city limits and sends the Kishin egg skittering backwards in a moment of animal panic. "Just _shut up_ and let me handle it!" Izaya's flood of thoughts cuts off abruptly, startled into silence at least for a moment, and Shizuo acts as quickly as his thoughts gain traction on the quiet to lunge forward over the gap between him and the Kishin egg again. It braces against the ground, the front pair of claws leaving the dirt in expectation of his forward movement; and Shizuo swings through another punch, with his left hand this time instead of his right. The Kishin egg surges upwards, legs spreading wide to catch and tear through his skin; and close on steel instead, the thing's attacking motion throwing itself against the razor edge of the knife clutched in Shizuo's hand. There's a screech of sound, high and piercing all through Shizuo's skull; someone hisses, himself or Izaya in his mind he doesn't know which, but he's moving still, adrenaline is guiding the action of his body even as his ears ring with the sharp edge of pain. His left hand comes up, his fingers slick with the dripping heat of his own spilled blood, his knuckles colliding hard with the side of the Kishin egg's body, and at the same time, as the momentum of the impact sends the thing toppling sideways, Shizuo lifts the blade in his other hand and drives it straight downward as if it's a stake he's trying to bury in the earth below them. There's a moment of resistance, the shadow in front of them turning uncannily solid beneath the blow; and then it splits apart, giving way like tissue paper before a razor blade, and Shizuo stumbles and falls forward as the whole of the Kishin egg's form rips apart and disintegrates with a brief hiss of dying fury. The knife in his hand catches at the ground, sinks in by an inch as he falls, and for a moment he stays on his hands and knees, breathing hard and with his fingers still locked to a fist around the handle of the weapon against his palm.

There's a moment of silence, the heavy, velvety kind that falls with the aftermath of violence, when there's nothing but the pant of breathing to fill what was awash with noise heartbeats before. Then, slowly, like Izaya's struggling for coherency as much as Shizuo: _You're going to bleed out if you stay there_ , more objective commentary than concern.

"Shut up," Shizuo says aloud, and pulls up to retrieve the knife from where he had half-buried it in the ground. _I'm not going to stay here that long_.

 _If you say so_ , Izaya offers, and then the weapon in Shizuo's hand evaporates into a flicker of light, the glow of it blinding against Shizuo's night-adjusted vision. He flinches back from it, lifting his bloodstained hand to shadow his eyes, and by the time the light has faded the knife has too, and there's just Izaya standing in front of him. He looks completely unharmed, even his clothes unruffled by the brief burst of violence they were just caught in; for a moment Shizuo wonders if he's going to turn and return to their apartment alone, if Shizuo will have to catch him before he'll consent to swallow the Kishin soul they've won with this particular fight. But Izaya doesn't turn away to return to the main streets of the city; he kneels instead, evening the gap between him and Shizuo in a single fluid motion without any visible hesitation for the press of the dirt against his clean jeans. His eyes are dark in the fading light; there's barely a flicker of color behind them from the Kishin soul floating just above the ground to turn his gaze the color of blood for a brief, uncanny moment. Izaya doesn't move to reach for the soul, and he doesn't shift his position; he just stares at Shizuo, his gaze fixed and his mouth set, looking as completely steady as if he never intends to move again.

Shizuo takes a moment to steady his breathing, to let his heart slow from the adrenaline rush of combat they were just caught in. Then he reaches out with his left hand to close blood-slick fingers on the soft give of the Kishin soul, to tighten his grip until he's sure of his hold. Izaya doesn't turn his head to watch, doesn't look away from Shizuo's face until the other takes a breath and offers the glow of the soul across the distance between them. His gaze drops, his lashes dipping to shadow the red-washed color of his eyes before he reaches out without speaking to take the soul from Shizuo's sticky fingers. Izaya's fingertips drag across Shizuo's palm, catching friction over the lines of the other's skin; it makes Shizuo's spine prickle, makes his fingers curl in on themselves into an involuntary fist as Izaya brings the glowing sphere to his lips and tips his head back for all the world like he's downing a shot of liquor. Shizuo watches the movement of the other's throat as he swallows, watches the flicker of reaction shimmer across Izaya's expression; and then he braces his clean hand on the ground and pushes himself to his feet in a single motion.

"Are you cold?" he asks, and offers his right hand towards Izaya still kneeling on the ground in front of him. "You can transform back, if you want."

Izaya stares up at him for a moment. That prickle against Shizuo's spine is back, and stronger; he can feel it like electricity humming in his veins, like the shiver of an unfamiliar touch dragging up the exact center of his back to mark out the curve of bone under skin. Then Izaya's lashes dip, and his gaze drops to Shizuo's hand, and when he moves it's to reach out instead, to close his grip around the open palm intended for his weapon form rather than the weight of his touch.

"No," he says, and pulls, and Shizuo resists on instinct, pulling back against the force of Izaya's hold to keep from falling. Izaya unfolds from his kneeling position, rising to his feet all at once with the support of Shizuo's unintentional grip, and then he's letting his hold go, his hand going slack in Shizuo's for a moment before Shizuo can think enough to loosen his hold and let the other's hand fall. Izaya slides his hands into the pockets of his coat, turning away before Shizuo can get a read on his expression, and he's facing the glow of the city when he speaks again. "I can get myself back home if you can."

Shizuo shifts his weight, testing the support of his injured leg under him. It feels steady enough, even if the ache is rising to a dull thud of constant pain with the easing of the adrenaline in his veins; his arm is far worse, as far as pain is concerned, but the flow of blood is slowing even as they speak, and he doesn't feel any dizziness that might indicate a more major problem.

"I'm fine," he decides. "I'll rinse off when we get back and check in with the nurse tomorrow to make sure everything is alright."

Izaya glances back at him. "Oh, is that all?" he drawls, his tone making a taunt of the words before he turns away and back to the city. "Really, the Kishin eggs ought to be more afraid of facing you than you are of them. You're far more of a monster than they are."

Shizuo scowls at the dark of Izaya's coat across his shoulders. "I didn't fight that one on my own," he snaps. "You're as much the monster as I am."

Izaya's laugh is sharp, cutting bright through the dark of falling night. He doesn't turn around for Shizuo to see his expression.

"Yeah," he says. "That might be true, Shizu-chan." And he steps away towards the city, taking the lead through the streets while Shizuo follows, frowning at his torn sleeve as he balls up what's left of the fabric to press against the slashes down his arm. By the time they make it to the apartment it really has stopped bleeding, even if he can feel the ache of the hurt all up his arm and spreading across his shoulder, and the pain at his leg has subsided to a distant throb of hurt on his mental horizon. Izaya unlocks the door as Shizuo limps down the hallway behind him and takes the lead into the apartment; but he stops just inside the entryway, holding the weight of the door open for Shizuo so the other can maintain the hold he has on the makeshift bandage against his left arm. Shizuo nods thanks instead of giving it voice, and he doesn't know if Izaya sees the motion; but the other keeps bracing the door, not letting it fall shut until Shizuo is well clear of it and moving to sit so he can work his shoes off before going to tape up his injuries. It's a small gesture, and Izaya disappears immediately after, retreating to lock himself in his room as he so often does when Shizuo is in the apartment. Still, Shizuo is more grateful for it than he ever expected to feel towards the other.

He wonders if this might be what it's supposed to feel like to have a partner.


	9. Elusive

The apartment is very quiet at night.

It's always been that way, Izaya knows, was true even when he was still partners with Shinra, back in the past-tense memories that have gone oddly distant in the intervening months, far more so than merely the passage of time can account for. He has to struggle to recall what it was like to have Shinra as a partner, for those few weeks that seemed so infinite at the time and seem so brief now in retrospect; it's as if every Kishin soul he eats ties him a little more firmly to this reality, to this present, like the whole of his partnership with Shinra was a trial run that never even got off the ground before it dissolved. He's not sure he likes the idea - for one thing, it seems to validate his current partnership in a way he's not sure he wants to support - but whatever the underlying cause, it is unquestionably true that he has to struggle to call up memories of what it was like with Shinra as a partner and how living with the other shaped his day-to-day life. Shinra was often in the living room but more often occupied with his own pursuits; Izaya could sometimes draw a lecture about anatomy or something more gruesome from the other if he tried, but more often any interactions they had were more silent coexistence than anything else. It's different, with Shizuo - every conversation is a struggle, like a fight in miniature waged over the kitchen table or in words thrown like daggers as they pass each other in the hallway - but it's all-or-nothing, too, because when Shizuo goes to bed the apartment is wholly Izaya's domain as it never was when he shared it with Shinra. His old meister slept as irregularly as Izaya did, with a demonstrated tendency to lose track of time when he was caught up in research, and he never cared what Izaya did with his time or worried about his partner's unusual or nonexistent sleeping habits. But Shizuo asks, and frowns over the kitchen table when Izaya brushes off his concerns, and he only retreated to his own room tonight after extracting a promise from Izaya to sleep 'at a reasonable hour,' as if reason has anything at all to do with when rest consents to come for Izaya. Izaya waved him off with whatever comforts the meister wanted from him, forgetting them as soon as they were said, and then subsided into the silence of the apartment to gaze out the window at the darkness of night falling over the city and to imagine himself as alone as the quiet of his surroundings makes him feel.

He doesn't know how long he stays in the living room, sitting on the couch and staring out the window and with his thoughts wandering down whatever paths the lateness of the hour suggests to them. He's not asleep, but he thinks his attention must be caught in some waking dream, because he doesn't hear the sounds of Shizuo stirring in his bedroom, doesn't hear the sound of the other's door creaking wider in time to turn off the glow of the light turned to dim in the living room. It's only as footsteps come down the hallway that Izaya startles himself to attention, and by then it's too late to take any action beside lifting his head to stare wide-eyed guilt at Shizuo as he comes around the corner to blink blearily in the glow of the living room light.

"Do you know what time it is?" Shizuo offers, the question rhetorical even before it punctuates itself with the stretch of a yawn at the other's mouth. Shizuo's hair is rumpled with the weight of sleep, tangled by the press of his pillow and maybe the drag of idle fingers; it curls more than Izaya thought it would, falls into waves across Shizuo's forehead when left untamed by morning routine and tidiness. "I thought you said you were going to go to bed soon."

"I was," Izaya says, reaching for his composure and coming up empty-handed of anything but defensiveness. "I couldn't sleep."

"You didn't even try," Shizuo informs him. "I would have heard you coming down the hallway." He yawns hugely again, lifting a hand to half-cover his mouth; his eyes crinkle shut with the effort of the reaction, his shoulders come up to follow the motion like it's some elaborate, full-body production. "Are you planning to sulk all night?"

"I'm not _sulking_ ," Izaya snaps, but Shizuo just blinks at him as he emerges from the distraction of his yawn, and in the end Izaya has to look away from the other's steady consideration just to keep his voice level. "I'm just awake. Not all of us can fall asleep at a moment's notice like you can, Shizu-chan."

"Missing sleep is really bad for you," Shizuo tells him, still with that sleep-hazed calm. Izaya wonders if this is how he would sound with someone else as his weapon partner, someone less deliberately abrasive than Izaya himself. He wonders if this is how Shizuo would sound with _him_ , if he made an effort to be less himself in all their interactions. "You'll get sick if you don't rest."

"Thank you," Izaya deadpans. "You're right, I had no idea the damage I was doing to myself. That changes everything, I'll trundle right off to bed like a good little weapon and tuck myself in for a full night's sleep right away."

Shizuo heaves a sigh. "You'll get _hurt_ ," he says, and then he's coming around the edge of the couch and back into Izaya's line of view, and Izaya can't help glancing up as he approaches. Shizuo's eyes are still heavy with sleep, his shoulders still slouching under the weight of exhaustion, but if anything his movements are more graceful than usual stripped of the hunched-shoulder anger the meister usually carries so close under his skin. He comes to the other end of the couch, and braces a hand against the support of the arm, and he's dropping to sit before Izaya has time to realize what he's doing and maybe kick his feet out to take up the space and insist there's no room for the other.

"I can't take you out on missions if you're not sleeping," Shizuo says as he tips his head to blink at Izaya. "It's too dangerous for you to fight tired."

Izaya can feel his shoulders draw up hard under his shirt, can feel his spine curving as if to form a defensive wall between himself and the conclusion Shizuo is about to come to. "It's not like it makes a difference," he snaps, throwing a glare back in response to Shizuo's calm consideration before he turns his head to scowl at the night-dark city on the other side of the window. "You can fight Kishin eggs just fine on your own, you don't need me anyway."

"I don't want to fight by myself," Shizuo tells him. "I came to Shibusen to work with a weapon partner, I'm not going to take on assignments and leave you behind."

"Well, I can't sleep just because you tell me to," Izaya tells him. "Maybe if you complain to the Headmaster you'll be able to get yourself reassigned to someone else with a more suitable personal schedule."

"What?" Shizuo says, sounding so confused Izaya risks a glance sideways at him. Shizuo is staring at him, a crease laid into the space between his eyebrows as he frowns at Izaya like he can't quite understand him. "You're my weapon partner, I'm not going to ask to be _reassigned_. Besides, wouldn't you still need to find a new meister yourself in that case?"

Izaya looks away again. "I guess so."

Shizuo heaves a sigh. "Listen. I know you don't like working with me." When Izaya looks sideways Shizuo's leaning over his knees and frowning at the loose clasp of his hands in his lap. "It's only for a while, though, right? We already have almost a dozen souls and we take on plenty of new assignments. Can't we focus on making you a Death Weapon instead of fighting all the time?"

Izaya stares at Shizuo for a long moment. His hair is falling forward over his face, the yellow locks catching the light to dapple shadow across his features, and some of that sleeping softness is still clinging to his lashes and the curve of his mouth even with the frown yet holding to his lips. Izaya can see him blink, can see him take a breath and start to lift his head; and he looks away again, cutting his eyes back to the window before Shizuo catches him staring.

"Sure," he says, the agreement tasting like surrender on his tongue. "Fine with me."

"Okay," Shizuo says. His voice sounds hesitant, like he's not quite sure he trusts Izaya's submission, but Izaya doesn't look at him, and after a moment Shizuo shifts and looks away once more. Izaya is expecting him to get up and return to his bedroom; but when Shizuo leans forward it's to reach for the remote on the table instead to turn the television on at the lowest volume setting before he settles back in against the support of the cushions.

Izaya blinks at the color and motion of the display before curiosity gets the better of self-restraint and pulls his attention sideways to Shizuo sitting next to him. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping you company," Shizuo says without looking away from the television. He lifts a hand, stifles another jaw-cracking yawn. "If you can't sleep it's better to be with someone else than on your own, right?" He braces an arm against the side of the couch and lifts his hand to support the sideways tip of his head. "Though I might not be able to stay awake very long. Sorry."

"Who said I wanted your company anyway?" Izaya says, but he offers the words quietly enough that they can go ignored or maybe even just unheard, with Shizuo's half-asleep distraction. The other is watching the television now, his gaze going unfocused and his shoulders tipping into a slouch of exhaustion even as Izaya watches, and then Izaya looks away and back to the television because it's hard enough to watch Shizuo when he's awake, and he doesn't think he can stand to watch the other slide into sleep without any concern at all for the weight of Izaya's gaze on him. Izaya fixes his eyes on the television screen instead, staring blankly at the flicker of movement while all his attention is caught by his periphery, and it's not until the late-night show that's playing concludes that he takes the chance to look sideways again.

Shizuo is asleep for real, now; the support of his arm at his head has given way completely and he's slumped against the side of the couch with his whole body draped heavy against the support. His shoulder is angled away from his neck, the collar of the t-shirt he's wearing pulling wide to bare a good inch of skin against the top of his collarbone, and his head is tipped away too, his whole position leaving the curve of his throat bare for the glow of the illumination overhead. His arm is heavy across his stomach, his hand slack and relaxed against the support of the cushions under him, and for the span of a brief, insane moment Izaya wonders how it would feel to have those fingers pressing against the inside of his wrist, or the back of his neck, how it would feel to have the support of Shizuo's grip holding him steady in his human body the way it braces his weapon form. It would be easy to sleep like that, he thinks, with the weight of Shizuo's arm to pin him down to reality so he could let the rest of himself go into the freefall of unconsciousness and know he has a tether to come back to; and then he realizes what he's thinking, and feels the burn of embarrassment crest scarlet across his cheeks, and turns his head away and down to bury his face against the cover of his sleeve and hide from the view of a nonexistent audience.

Izaya doesn't think he'll be able to get to sleep as he is, with the light on and the murmur of the television and the soft rhythm of Shizuo's breathing so close it's clearer by far than the sound of the talk show playing from the television speakers. But even with his eyes shut he can see the curve of Shizuo's open fingers, can imagine the press of the other's palm bracing him still, and in the end he slides sideways into a dream without knowing it, imagining that the weight of his arm against his waist is someone else's hold while the sound of Shizuo's breathing lulls him to the unconsciousness that proves so elusive on his own.

It might only be a handful of hours until dawn, but with the comfort of companionship, Izaya sleeps soundly until daybreak.


	10. Care

Shizuo likes cooking.

This is convenient, given that he's been stuck with doing all the meal preparation in the absolute absence of a willingness on Izaya's part to do anything more complicated than purchase snacks from the convenience store by way of sustenance. Shizuo isn't sure what Izaya ate before they became partners, and he's too concerned about the answer he's likely to get to put voice to the inquiry. It doesn't matter, really; what matters is that they're living together now, and Shizuo has access to a kitchen significantly larger than the one in his first tiny studio apartment, and that makes the nightly task of preparing something for dinner more pleasant than otherwise. It's soothing to chop vegetables and swing the wooden spoon in slow arcs through a pot of bubbling stew; Shizuo doesn't have to think at all, can let his mind wander and his thoughts hum over tuneless melodies from some distant memory of music as he goes through the basic steps to make their evening meal.

Izaya doesn't help. He's never offered, and Shizuo never asks; after their first mission together, he's unwilling to ask for help he doesn't absolutely need, and besides Izaya's disinclination to do anything more complex than unwrap prepackaged meals suggests a lack of competence in the kitchen that Shizuo doesn't want to have to work around. If he ever asked to help Shizuo would be willing to hand off the mundane task of chopping carrots or dicing onions to him; but he doesn't, and that leaves Shizuo free to work through the familiar steps without any interruption to the pattern he learned to follow when cooking just for himself. Izaya is out of his room, tonight; Shizuo isn't sure if it's the smell of the stew cooking that has urged him from behind the weight of his closed door, or maybe some well-hidden desire for silent companionship, but in either case he's been sitting on the couch for almost an hour by the time the stew is done, his back to the kitchen and his head ducked down over what Shizuo assumes is the screen of his cell phone. Shizuo has glanced up at him occasionally, at semi-regular intervals during the steady pace of his work over the counter; but Izaya has never looked up at him, and all Shizuo can see of the other is the hunch of his shoulders and the dark of his hair at the back of his neck, and in the end he had given up entirely on figuring out what Izaya was doing and focused on the steady process of cooking instead. It's almost a quarter of an hour later that he turns the burner off, the _click_ of the dial sounding as clearly as a bell in the quiet of the apartment, and says "Dinner's ready" without turning around to look to Izaya on the couch.

His statement isn't quite true. The stew might be done cooking, technically, but it still takes a few minutes to collect a pair of bowls from the cabinet and serve ladlefuls of the thick stew into them. By the time Shizuo is bringing them over to the table it's been more than enough time for Izaya to finish whatever he's doing and come over; but there's no one at the table, and no sign that the other has moved at all from where he's sitting at the couch, and Shizuo's frown goes wholly unnoticed as he sets the bowls down with more force than is strictly necessary.

"Izaya." His voice is harder, now, he can feel the edge of it forming in the back of his throat. "Come and eat."

"I'm not hungry," Izaya says without lifting his gaze from his phone to see the way Shizuo is watching him. "I'll get something later."

"No you won't," Shizuo says, certainty making his words come sharp with judgment. "You never bother to get anything to eat on your own." He leaves the bowls where they sit at the table to stride across to the living room; Izaya still doesn't look up from his screen, but there's tension forming in his shoulders, strain settling in against his spine to make the set of his body look like he's trying to form a wall to stand against whatever force Shizuo can effect.

Shizuo ignores it. "You can't skip meals," he informs the dark of Izaya's hair. "It's bad for you, you're already skinnier than you should be."

"What are you, my mother?" Izaya says without lifting his head.

"No," Shizuo says. "I'm your _meister_." Izaya does look up then, his head coming up as his eyes go wide; Shizuo holds the other's gaze without flinching, frowning intensity to add weight to his words. "You're meant to be support I can rely on in a fight. If you don't eat I can't depend on you, and I can't go out on missions without a weapon I can count on."

Izaya's lashes flicker, his throat works on some sound left unvoiced. His fingers tighten against his phone, but he doesn't look away; there's something strange behind his eyes, a tension almost like pain caught behind the red tinge coloring the dark of his gaze.

"First sleeping, now eating," he says, the words managing only the barest suggestion of teasing in his voice. "What next, Shizu-chan, are you going to keep me on a leash to make sure I don't run off and hurt myself?"

"If I have to," Shizuo says, and Izaya's lashes dip again, his eyebrows skipping up into momentary surprise. "Come and eat dinner."

Izaya's jaw shifts, like he's thinking about setting it into stubbornness; but then he ducks his head, and presses the button to lock his phone, and says "Yes, meister" with mocking insincerity drawling in his throat.

Shizuo doesn't care. Izaya can make a taunt of his obedience all he wants; what matters is that he's setting his phone aside, and getting up to come to the table and eat something other than coffee and rolls for one meal of the day. Shizuo trails him, ready to resist if Izaya picks at his food and then leaves; but Izaya takes one desultory bite, and then another with somewhat more enthusiasm, and by the time Shizuo is taking his seat at the other end of the table Izaya is leaning in over his bowl and focusing on eating with the same attention he had turned on his phone screen a moment before. It's not quite the same as praise, and it's not quite surrender to the logic of Shizuo's demand; but Izaya gets up for a second serving while Shizuo is still working on his first, and brings it back to the table instead of retreating to the couch or his bedroom, and when Shizuo glances at the other Izaya is working his way through his meal with a focus that is better than coherent compliments would be. It's enough to make Shizuo smile before he ducks his head and turns his attention to his own meal, and he's still smiling when Izaya pushes back from the table and gets up to set his bowl in the sink before returning to whatever he was originally doing on the couch. Shizuo handles the cleanup as well as the cooking, and with just as much complete disregard from his weapon partner; but he's still smiling as he sets aside the last of the dishes to dry and reaches for a towel to wipe his hands clean.

It might be minimal improvement, but he's sure the next time he tells Izaya to take care of himself he won't have to repeat the command.


	11. Support

It's hard to have Heiwajima Shizuo as a meister.

It's not that it's hard to work with him. Izaya wishes it were that. It would be easier to resist, he thinks, if there were something he could push against, some point in their connection that grates or misaligns, some reason he could tell himself for the shudder that runs through him every time Shizuo extends his hand, every time the meister's voice tells him to "Transform" with that level dominance that has become so casual over the months of their partnership. It would be easier if it were discomfort, if it were a simple matter of bracing himself for the unpleasant necessity of partnering for another fight, if it were a struggle to fit themselves together. At least that would be something Izaya knew how to handle, something he could deal with behind the wall of his Soul Possession and the set stubbornness of his will to push forward through the fights to earn him the Kishin souls that will set him free at the end of this.

That's not what it's like. It starts as soon as Izaya transforms, as soon as Shizuo's fingers close tight around the hilt of his weapon form. Izaya can feel the heat of Shizuo's skin like a painless brand against him, as if it's his soul itself caught in the steady grip of the other's hand, as if Shizuo's fingerprints are pressing against whatever details make Izaya who he is and controlling them as easily as the meister controls his weapon form. Izaya's attempts at soul possession are token at best, now; he wonders if Shizuo notices how minimal his efforts have become, wonders if the gap between his full-strength attack at their first meeting and the show of resistance he's putting up now is obvious, like he's offering the attempt at dominance only for the satisfaction of feeling Shizuo's soul wavelength sweep over and pin his own under its control. It makes Izaya feel like he's drowning, like he can't breathe enough air to fill the aching void in his chest where his lungs should be; he wonders, sometimes, if this is what his own Soul Possession feels like from the other direction, if there's this same sense of overwhelming dominance to sweep away even the simple reflex of breathing from his control. But Shizuo doesn't have Soul Possession, and that's not what this is; this is something more immediate, something integral to who Izaya is, that the pressure of Shizuo wielding him flares sunbright in him until he wants to kneel, wants to bow his head, wants to offer up the very core of who he is to the Soul-Force-strong grip of Shizuo's hands.

He doesn't. It's a battle every time, one he wages inside himself while Shizuo is focused on the rhythm of their fight and meeting the motions of whatever opponent they are facing down this time; that's Shizuo's job, after all, and Izaya can provide the backup of a sharp shine and a deadly edge without thinking, without having to focus on anything other than clinging to his resistance with all the stubbornness he can muster. It feels like gritting his teeth, like setting himself against a wall and shoving back with all his might just to keep from being swept away by the tide of Shizuo's will; but Izaya does it, pushing himself past the point of reason with every fight and only startled away by the occasional flares of borrowed pain that come when Shizuo is too aggressive in his attacks and gets himself torn by a shadowy maw or vicious claws before he can find the balance to dodge. Izaya can feel the hurt like a flicker of electricity over his lingering sense of self, as if someone is trailing fingers across his skin to echo the burst of agony that distracts Shizuo's thoughts into a flare of blind adrenaline for the first moment. Those are the worst, when his attention for his private battle collapses into concern; it's only Shizuo's distraction, he thinks, that has kept the shrill edge of panic on his inevitable _Be_ careful _, Shizu-chan_ from becoming painfully obvious to the meister. It still leaves him flustered and off-balance whenever it happens; the only comfort he has is that such incidents have become less and less common the more assignments they go on, until now it's been four weeks and counting since the last time Shizuo left a fight smeared with any but their opponent's blood.

Shizuo's improving in other ways too. It's not just that he's faster on his feet, not just that he's starting dodging backwards in advance of the panicky shouts Izaya offers in moments of particular tension; he's hitting harder too, more deliberately, aiming his blows for the weak points indicated more by the way the Kishin egg in front of him holds itself than by any consistent anatomy. His punches hit like hammer blows, his swings with Izaya's weapon form tear through corrupted flesh and shadowy joints alike as if they're tissue paper; Izaya can feel the razor edge of his blade parting the inhuman body before them almost without resistance as the force of Shizuo's swing runs up against the strength of bone and sinew and wins almost on contact. It leaves Izaya breathless and trembling, hot all through his body with the vicious drag of efficacy he could never dream of managing alone; and then Shizuo loosens his grip, and lifts his other arm, and he's tossing Izaya from one hand to the other before Izaya has realized what it is he intends. There's a moment of disconnect, a heart-stopping breath of sudden panic tensing hard across Izaya's shoulders; and then Shizuo's hand closes against the handle of his weapon form, his fingers tighten hard against the hilt, and all Izaya's composure is gone, swept aside by the casual pressure of Shizuo's hold against him. There was no hesitation, no concern for a mistaken trajectory or the damage Izaya's edge could do to unwary fingers; just absolute certainty, as if Izaya is an extension of Shizuo's body, as if he can be manipulated as simply and as surely as Shizuo moves himself through the strange violent grace that runs through his body alongside the blood in his veins. The thought knocks Izaya's focus loose, leaves him gasping for air that he doesn't need and can't get in his current form, and it's then that Shizuo's Soul Force hits him, running down his spine and jolting electric through all the small bones of his body in a single overwhelming impact. It's like getting hit by lightning, like being lit up from the inside out, and for a few brief moments there's nothing Izaya can do but let Shizuo guide him through a clean sweep of movement, let his edge tear through the darkness of the Kishin egg before them while his thoughts are still struggling to regain some bearing other than that which Shizuo offers.

It would be easy to steady himself. Izaya can feel the weight of Shizuo's self alongside his own, like the glow of sunlight through a pane of glass forming the wall between them; Izaya could reach out, he thinks, could admit he needs the support and catch himself against Shizuo and let everything else realign itself accordingly. It would be simple, it would be _easy_ ; but he doesn't know how much would bleed across that line if he once breaks it, doesn't know how much of himself he might spill under the pressure of Shizuo's soul wavelength. And there are things he doesn't want to share, things he doesn't want to give up and that he doesn't want Shizuo to know, so he presses himself back from the line that joins them together, holds himself as far back from the thrum of Shizuo's wavelength as he can get, and if he can feel the vibration of it like a held note thrumming against the back of his skull at least he can stand it for another moment, a second, a third; until the Kishin egg hisses a last dying protest, and collapses in on itself, and Shizuo lets the tension in his body go limp with relief as the shape in front of them disintegrates. The force eases, the pressure of Shizuo's soul wavelength pulls back; and Izaya is transforming, pulling himself away from Shizuo's grip and back into his own human body as fast as he can remember how to work through the shift. His legs are weak, his hands shaky; but he catches his balance before he falls, and shoves his hands into his pockets where their tremors won't be seen, and when he says "Great work, Shizu-chan" he thinks he manages to attain some kind of mocking drawl, even if he can barely make out the sound past the ringing in his ears. "You're overwhelming, I'm sure all the new Kishin eggs live in mortal terror of your coming."

"Shut up," Shizuo tells him. Izaya can't be sure - it's hard to piece together the tenor of the other's voice when Izaya can barely separate the murmur of sound into individual words - but he sounds calmer than usual, as if the fight has sapped him of the energy for anything more than token protest. "It's only because we're working together that we're making so much progress." Shizuo turns away to step forward towards the glow of the Kishin soul floating just above the ground; the span of his shoulders gives Izaya the promise of a moment without observation to let his shoulders slump and work through a deliberately slow inhale in an attempt to push back the shadows threatening to close his vision off to darkness. He shifts one foot by a few inches, just enough to ease the trembling strain of his locked-out knees, and focuses on the rhythm of his inhales as Shizuo reaches to close his fingers around the crimson glow of the soul.

"This was better than last time," Shizuo is saying, but Izaya can barely hold to the words, can't get his thoughts to focus on anything beyond the low rumble of Shizuo's voice humming through his body. "We're getting the hang of this." There's a rush of sound, a gust of air; Izaya only parses it as a laugh as Shizuo goes on talking with amusement warm in the back of his throat. "I didn't think we'd ever work so well together when we started out."

"It's not like you gave me much of a choice," Izaya tells him. Shizuo is getting to his feet, is turning back around; Izaya braces harder against the ground as if that will somehow prove more steady than his spinning head, tightens his fingers into a fist in an attempt to bring himself back to his too-distant body with the application of painful pressure. "Work with you or have souls delivered to me, I think were the options."

Shizuo's mouth tightens at the corner to threaten the beginnings of a smile. Izaya feels like he's coming detached from the world. "Those are still options," he says, and holds his hand out to offer the flickering light of the soul for Izaya's claiming. "You didn't have to help me."

"Yeah," Izaya says, not sure what he's agreeing to, feeling the thread of the conversation slipping from his thoughts as the world tries to drag itself out from under him. "Whatever you say." He pulls his hand from his pockets, loosens his fingers from their fist as he reaches out to take the soul from Shizuo's open palm; and his vision tunnels into darkness without warning, the whirl of dizzy sound in his ears swelling to a roar that drowns out even his awareness of his own body. His eyes are open, he thinks, but he's not seeing anything, not thinking anything, not feeling-and then he gasps an inhale, and his vision clears in a rush, and Shizuo is saying his name in a tone Izaya's never heard from him before, "Izaya" sharp and bright like glass, like daybreak, like the glint of sunshine blinding and hot. " _Izaya_." There's pressure at Izaya's shoulder, a weight digging in against his collarbone, and Izaya realizes Shizuo is holding onto him just as the other shakes him through a tiny arc of movement. " _Izaya!_ "

"I'm fine," Izaya says, even though Shizuo didn't ask. His lips are numb. He missed the soul completely; his fingers are bracing hard at Shizuo's arm instead, his grip as tight as he can make it against the support of the other's forearm. "Shut up, Shizu-chan."

"What's wrong?" Shizuo asks, still in that same strange, crystalline tone. His hold at Izaya's shoulder gives way, his palm catches under the other's elbow instead; it feels like the world is rising up to meet Izaya personally, as if the stability of the earth itself is seeking him out to strip away the dizzy whirl of his awareness. "You're _freezing_. Are you hurt?" His other arm shifts, the one Izaya is bracing himself against; Izaya reaches out desperately for another point of stability beyond the hand at his elbow and catches his fingers into a fist of Shizuo's shirtfront. The fabric drags under his touch, pulling lopsided off Shizuo's shoulder, but the other doesn't protest; he's reaching out instead, catching the off-balance angle of Izaya's weight against the inside of his arm. "Izaya, are you hurt, _answer me_."

"I'm not hurt," Izaya says at once, the words spilling from him more in answer to Shizuo's command than his own desire. He grimaces and ducks his head forward; the movement makes his sight blur again, but more importantly it lets his hair fall in front of his face and gives him some cover for the focus of Shizuo's gaze on him. "I'm a little lightheaded. It's fine." He takes a breath, shifts his footing underneath him; when he blinks his vision clears, steadying into focus as he remembers how to fit into the space of a human body instead of his weapon form. "Don't you know how to fight without using Soul Force?"

"What?" Shizuo's voice is easing, edging back from the tension of panic that was so caught in his throat originally, but his hold on Izaya's arm is still unshakably tight. Izaya leans against the resistance, trusting his weight to it so he can draw his fingers back from Shizuo's shoulder and reach out for the Kishin soul instead; Shizuo lets it go as soon as Izaya pulls, opening his fingers to the other's urging, but Izaya's very sure Shizuo's not thinking about the soul anymore at all. "I don't know. I don't usually think about it."

"I know," Izaya says, tipping his head back so he can swallow the soft glow of the soul as fast as possible, like a shot of alcohol that has to be downed before his body has a chance to recognize poison on his tongue. It takes him a moment to work through the movement, but the action of swallowing helps too, reminds him of the details of his body and the function of the processes within it. By the time he tips his chin back down to meet Shizuo's focused gaze with a flat stare he feels almost himself again, definitely enough to muster a bite of mockery on the back of his tongue for his next statement. "There's not a thought in your head when you're fighting. Do you just let your muscles do the thinking for you?"

"Shut up," Shizuo says, but there's still no force on it; he's frowning at Izaya still, his forehead creased in a way that makes the expression concern instead of anger. "Is Soul Force that hard for you to handle?"

"No," Izaya says. "No, Shizu-chan, I'm perfectly able to have someone else's soul wavelength forcibly run through me like a lightning rod. There's no problem here at all, I could keep this up all day."

Shizuo blinks. "Oh." His fingers tighten against Izaya's arm; it would be painful if Izaya weren't leaning so hard against the support. As it is it's embarrassingly close to comfort. "I didn't realize it was that hard for you." He ducks his head; his mouth shifts into something almost soft. "Sorry."

Izaya's whole skin prickles, running itself to heat as if Shizuo's fingertips are carrying the same force they did while he was in weapon form, as if the connection to the other's soul persists even now that he's in his own mind instead of occupying a corner of the meister's. He wants to pull his arm away, wants to wrench free of Shizuo's hold and reclaim the distance between them that he wants there to be, that he _needs_ there to be for his own self-preservation; but he can't trust his shaky legs to support him, and he suspects collapsing at Shizuo's feet would only make his situation worse. So he swallows the tension from his throat, and pushes away his awareness of the heat of Shizuo's touch at his skin, and says "It's fine" because it's the easiest lie to offer, under the circumstances. "It's only for another few months anyway."

Shizuo huffs an exhale as if he's been shocked, or as if Izaya has reached out to slam the weight of a punch low under his ribcage. "Right," he says, and his voice is back to normal, now, that soft, bright warmth on it given over to distance once more. He loosens his hold on Izaya's arm fractionally, enough to pull back from the painful tension while still giving support, and when he moves it's to take a step forward and draw Izaya around to move in the direction of their apartment. "Let's go home."

Shizuo doesn't say anything else for the fifteen minutes it takes them to make their slow way back to the apartment, and Izaya doesn't try to offer even teasing conversation. But Shizuo doesn't let his hold go either, and even if all Izaya's skin is tingling with near-painful electricity by the time they get inside, he's more grateful for the support than he will ever admit aloud.


	12. Warmth

Shizuo sleeps in late the first day of winter break. It's nice to have his alarm turned off, to let the hours of the morning slide by uncounted except by the shift of dreams through his unconscious mind, and after the stress that comes with the end-of-term exams he can do with the relief of a few extra hours of sleep. By the time he wakes up it's well into the morning, late enough that the bright shine of sunlight should have stirred him to consciousness; but the sky outside his window is silvered to grey when he blinks himself awake, and the glass is studded with droplets of water to match those pattering against the roof, and the whole world is caught in the sleek shine of rain that must have been falling for hours, judging by how soaked the street below is. The sidewalks are empty of passersby, except for those few clutching umbrellas and walking fast to get from one location to another; Shizuo stands at the window for a few minutes, reflecting on his plans for the day and appreciating that none of them require him to leave the house, and then he turns away and emerges into the hallway without bothering to change into something less comfortable than his pajama pants and worn-in t-shirt.

Izaya's awake already. Shizuo expected as much; the other has been sleeping a little more, judging from the fading of the constant shadows under his eyes, but he still stays up later than Shizuo and often wakes earlier. Even when Shizuo is first out of his room Izaya always appears looking wide awake, with none of the sleep-bleariness that comes with freshly renewed consciousness; he suspects that even then Izaya is awake before him and just doing whatever it is Izaya does in the privacy of his bedroom instead of the main living space. Shizuo doesn't ask; it doesn't make a difference to him, as long as his partner is getting enough rest to be relied upon in a fight, and that, at least, Izaya has been managing with remarkable consistency the last few months.

"Morning," Shizuo offers as he rounds the corner to the living room, nearly interrupting himself with the stretch of a yawn at the back of his throat. "Happy break."

"Happy break," Izaya replies, without much bite on the words for once. He's curled up on the couch, his feet drawn in close against himself and his elbow propped against the arm so he can lean his head heavily against the support of his hand; he doesn't look up to see Shizuo's entrance into the room. "I thought you were going to sleep away the whole day."

Shizuo shrugs. "I wouldn't have minded if I could manage it," he says, moving towards the kitchen and the milk he knows is in the fridge. "It's not like we have anything we need to get done today anyway."

"For once," Izaya agrees. "We get to just sit around being bored at home all day instead of sitting around being bored in class."

"You're always so negative," Shizuo says, the words more commentary than judgment. "Are you ever optimistic about anything?"

"Never," Izaya tells him. "It keeps me from being disappointed. Pessimism is far superior to unjustified hope."

"You're just a little ray of sunshine." Shizuo pulls open the top of one bottle of milk, drinking most of it on his first swallow while still standing in front of the open refrigerator. It's only once he's down to the last inch that he pauses to consider the range of other breakfast items before him in the fridge. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

"Sure."

"You haven't," Shizuo says. "Eggs and toast okay?"

Izaya groans from the couch. "I'm not hungry."

"You can't skip breakfast," Shizuo tells him, finishing off his milk and setting the bottle aside before reaching into the fridge for a carton of eggs with one hand and another bottle of milk with the other. "You said yourself you don't have anything better to do."

"I can too," Izaya protests. "Or I could, if you ever gave me a moment's peace. I don't want anything."

Shizuo sighs. "I'll make you coffee."

There's a pause. Izaya doesn't turn around to meet Shizuo's gaze but the hesitation in his reply is answer enough; Shizuo is turning away to rummage through the cupboard for the coffee grounds before Izaya clears his throat to say, "As if the coffee you make is any kind of temptation. You always add milk, it's disgusting."

"Milk is good for you," Shizuo says again, going through the motions of this familiar conversation as he fills the kettle with water and puts it on to boil. "Maybe you'd be happier if you drank more of it."

"I'm perfectly content exactly as I am," Izaya informs him. "You're the only one who ever has any complaints about me."

"That's because I'm the only one who has to live with you." Shizuo retrieves the bread from the pantry and extricates the toaster from where it's been pushed far to the back edge of the counter. "Everyone else gets to spend their mornings and evenings in peace."

"You have all my sympathies," Izaya drawls, and Shizuo huffs something that feels very nearly like a laugh and lets the last word stand while he focuses on the process of making Izaya the promised drink. It takes a few minutes for the water to boil and the coffee to steep, and he spends them working through his second bottle of milk and rinsing both containers before setting them aside for recycling; it's not until the kitchen is full of the rich smell of the coffee that he fills an overlarge mug and brings it out to where Izaya is still on the couch watching whatever is on the television with the hint of a frown at his mouth. He looks more tired when Shizuo comes around the edge of the furniture to get a proper look at his face; there's a heaviness to his eyelids and an angle to his shoulders that says he got less sleep than usual, or maybe that his boredom is lulling him towards more exhaustion than he usually will admit to feeling.

"Here," Shizuo says, offering the full cup of coffee for the other's grasp. "As promised."

"Ah yes, the unconvincing bribe." Izaya pushes up from the arm of the couch and reaches out to catch the weight of the cup. "If you learned to make an actual decent cup of coffee you would be a lot more persuasive, Shizu-chan."

"It's good enough for you to drink it," Shizuo starts, and then Izaya's thumb catches against the edge of his braced-out fingers and he hisses, the chill of the contact pushing aside any casual banter he might have had to offer. "Oh my god, your hands are like _ice_."

Izaya huffs. "It's _winter_ , you know, it's not that unreasonable to be cold." He takes the cup away from Shizuo's hold to pull it in towards his chest, his mouth drawing down into a frown as he looks up through the fall of his hair to meet Shizuo's concerned gaze. "That's what the coffee's for, anyway. At least you can usually make it reasonably hot."

"You should have said something," Shizuo tells him. "I'll turn the heater on and you can warm up."

"It's fine," Izaya says, ducking his head in over the rising steam from his cup of coffee. "Don't worry about it." He's drawing his legs in closer to himself and tipping his shoulders over the curl of his hands; it looks half-defensive, like he's trying to make a cage of his body to repulse Shizuo's attention, but more than anything else it's like he's trying to cradle the heat from his coffee against his skin to flush it back to comfortable warmth. He _is_ paler now than Shizuo is used to seeing him, he realizes; even his lips lack some of their usual pink color, as if it's been drained by the chill of the rain pattering against the glass.

"I'm going to turn up the thermostat," Shizuo says, with enough conviction in his voice to override the huff of petulant rejection this wins from Izaya. "Stay there, I'll be right back."

"As if I have anywhere else to go," Izaya mumbles, but it's close enough to agreement that Shizuo doesn't hesitate to head back down the hallway to the thermostat halfway along the wall between their rooms. It's reading several degrees lower than usual, even though Shizuo hadn't noticed the difference, and the heater clicks on as soon as he tabs it up by a few degrees, whirring into the low hum of white noise that Shizuo associates so strongly with wintertime. He can feel the spill of warm air from the vents by the time he's back in the kitchen, and if Izaya hasn't unfolded from his protective hunch on the couch he's at least eased his shoulders enough to sip carefully at the steaming coffee in his cup. Shizuo doesn't say anything else about it, and Izaya doesn't comment on the rapid increase in the ambient temperature; but by the time Shizuo is bringing a pair of plates over to the table, Izaya doesn't hesitate to shut off the television and come over from the couch with a casual grace far closer to his typical elegance than the prickly tension straining in his shoulders a few minutes before.

By the time Izaya gets up to pour himself a refill of his coffee, Shizuo can see the flush of warmth across the line of his cheekbones and clinging to the soft of his mouth once more, and if he smiles at the change, Izaya doesn't ask why.


	13. Rejection

Of all the mandatory Shibusen classes, Izaya thinks he dislikes Kujiragi's the most.

It's not that they're any harder, exactly. Simon's lectures are always a challenge to follow just from his style of presentation and speech, and there's always the possibility of being called up with no warning to demonstrate something in front of the class as a whole. The more talkative one is the more likely this is to happen, Izaya has rapidly learned; by now he keeps his mouth shut, and his attention on the notes in front of him, and he's managed to dodge getting called up any more than twice in the last three months. Shizuo is not so lucky; he gets pulled up almost once a week to be a stand-in for some demonstration or another. Izaya doesn't know if it's the fact that Shizuo's distraction is too obvious to hide, or if it's just that his unusual grasp of Soul Force makes him the only available option for many demonstrations, but whatever the cause it's more than enough amusement to pull a grin onto Izaya's mouth even over the distance of the classroom. There's some risk there too - if he looks too obviously amused he's as likely to get brought up on some constructed pretext as Shizuo - but Izaya's gotten good at restraining that too, until Simon's classes are nearly entertaining enough to make them worth looking forward to. The weapon-only classes aren't so bad either; at least Izaya doesn't have to deal with the distraction of Shizuo in those, and while he may not be overly fond of sitting in a room with Shinra's partner and the unwilling mascot of the entire school, Celty never does anything to affect him directly, and in the end Izaya can't find it in him to hold her partner's callousness against her personally. It's not as if she's the one who made Shinra into the person he is, after all; and besides, Izaya stopping thinking of Shinra as even his ex-meister a bare handful of weeks after the other moved out. It's hard enough to deal with the meister he has now; he has no time to spare for sulking about the past, and less inclination to do so. So he pays attention in his weapon classes, takes notes in lecture and works through the homework and hands-on assignments in the peace of his bedroom, and if he doesn't care much about days when he attends those sessions he finds he doesn't hate them either.

The dread he saves entirely for the practical coursework.

It starts as soon as they come through the door. The alignment of the walls, the layout of the furniture, even the high arch of the ceiling: it's all too familiar, it carries the pressed-in memories of too many weeks spent here waiting for a meister that never came, until even with Shizuo at his side Izaya can hardly find the air to take a deep breath. And then there's the coursework itself: the hands-on practice they're meant to do necessarily requires Izaya to transform, requires him to let Shizuo wield him in the same shadows he hid himself within on the meister's first appearance, demands that he let the force of Shizuo's mental presence overwhelm him into submission that always turns all his blood to steam in his veins. It's hard enough to bear in the field, when there's the immediate distraction of violence and the grounding effect of danger to lock them both into a shared outward focus; with nothing but the patter of footsteps and the soft hush of voices around them in the classroom, there's nothing to keep Shizuo's attention on anything other than Izaya in his head. There are no shadows for Izaya to hide in, nothing he can throw in front of himself to protect the murmur of his thoughts from Shizuo's insight, and there are things in his head he doesn't want Shizuo to know, things he can hardly stand to acknowledge in himself. Every class is an extended struggle between trying to keep his thoughts on lockdown and fighting back the undercurrent of Shizuo's wavelength purring through all Izaya's veins like it's urging him to relax, to cede control, to hand over power to the meister gripping the handle of his weapon form in steady fingers. _He would be better at this than you_ , Izaya's mind murmurs, _he could take care of you, he could_ help _you, just relax, just_ stop fighting. And Izaya keeps fighting, because it's all he knows how to do, it's all he _can_ do, and it's the only way he can fight Shizuo back from seeing too far into the shadows of the psyche he's sworn he'll never leave open to anyone.

It's in the midst of this silent, unseen war in the shared space of he and Shizuo's consciousnesses that Kujiragi comes over to check on them.

"How are things going?" she asks, her voice faint and echoey in the way that sounds always seem when Izaya's in weapon form. "You're coming close to your hundred souls, aren't you?"

"Ah," Shizuo says, and drops back onto his heels and out of the combat-ready stance he had been in. "Yeah, we are." Izaya thinks about transforming back for the span of this conversation, thinks about buying himself a few minutes of time in his human form just for the chance to catch his breath and exist in the echoing silence of his own head for a moment; but he doesn't want to talk to Kujiragi, and she'll undoubtedly want him to transform back for some exercise or another, and he doesn't want to go through the first few seconds of his involuntary attempts at Soul Possession and Shizuo's inevitable control over him with an audience beyond the meister himself. So he stays in his weapon form instead, and lets the sound of Kujiragi's voice come to him in offset stereo from the minimal perception of his weapon form and the slightly delayed awareness of her voice inside the realm of Shizuo's thoughts.

"I'm surprised you two worked out so well together," Kujiragi tells them, her voice betraying nothing like this supposed surprise. "I wasn't sure you would find yourselves compatible."

 _Bullshit_ , Izaya hisses to the audience of one he currently has. _As if she didn't know exactly what she was doing when she told you to partner with me._

 _Shut up_ , Shizuo growls back, offering efficient cessation to the conversation, and aloud, while Izaya is still scowling with irritation that goes unnoticed: "Well, we made it work somehow."

"You did." Kujiragi lifts a hand to slide her glasses slightly higher up the bridge of her nose as she looks down at Izaya's weapon form in Shizuo's grip. Izaya can feel his shoulders stiffen just at the suggestion of that gaze, at the considering weighing behind Kujiragi's eyes on him. "Have you managed to achieve Soul Resonance as yet?"

Izaya recoils. There's nowhere for him to go, no space for him to stage a retreat inside the space of Shizuo's head; but he shoves himself back as far away from the other's consciousness as he can get, hunching the mental idea of shoulders in over himself to make a wall between himself and Shizuo's soul wavelength.

"No," Shizuo says, sounding like he's barely paying attention to what Kujiragi is saying. _Izaya?_ "Soul Resonance?" _What's wrong?_

 _No_ , Izaya thinks, forcing the word to diamond-edged clarity over the gap between his awareness and Shizuo's, over the difference between them that usually feels so dangerously narrow and now feels like all the security of a locked door compared to what Kujiragi is suggesting. _I'm not doing it_.

"Yes." Kujiragi sounds calm, her voice still as absolutely level as it ever is; Izaya wonders if she has the least idea how viciously defensive her words have made him. He wonders if she would care even if she did. "It's a matter of bringing your wavelengths into alignment and harmonizing with each other as weapon and meister." She considers Izaya again, pursing her lips into thoughtful consideration. "The end result often carries a significant increase in combat ability. Given the untapped potential of your weapon partner, I imagine achieving Soul Resonance would allow you both to skip several ranks in relative power."

"Really?" Shizuo says aloud, and in his head: _Seriously, what's wrong with you? You're acting like she's about to stab you._

"Really." Kujiragi blinks, her eyes cataloguing every feature of the both of them, from Shizuo's stance to the fit of his fingers against Izaya's weapon form to the shine of the light off the open blade. When she looks up to meet Shizuo's gaze Izaya has the uncanny feeling she's looking through the meister and at him instead, as if it's his attention behind Shizuo's eyes that she's interested in holding. "You're taking two-star assignments right now, isn't that right? You could tackle a three-star easily if you were able to drop into Soul Resonance at will."

 _No_ , Izaya says again, but Kujiragi can't hear him and Shizuo isn't answering, as if he's somehow not hearing the shrill skid of the other's voice inside his head. _No, I won't do it_.

"Is there a trick to it?" Shizuo asks, and that's the wrong question, that's too close to interest for Izaya to bear. He hisses, a raw sound of unfettered fury against the back of Shizuo's mind, and Shizuo frowns, and shakes his head as if to clear it, and goes on speaking. "Something special we have to do, or…?"

Kujiragi tips her head and lifts one shoulder in an easy shrug. "It's more a state of mind than a physical action. You're fitting your soul wavelengths together; both you and your weapon have to be making a conscious choice to align with each other. Once you're both reaching out, you'll be able to feel the connection forming and adjust accordingly."

"Sounds easy." _What is_ wrong _with you? It doesn't sound that hard._

 _It's not about it being hard_ , Izaya snaps, because it _doesn't_ sound hard; it sounds easy, terrifyingly easy, something he could slip into without even intending if he's not careful. _I just don't_ want _to._

 _Why not?_ Shizuo presses. _I think we could do it. It would be a lot faster to find assignments in the higher ranks. We could probably get you the rest of the Kishin souls you need before the beginning of summer._

Izaya can feel ice settle into the illusion of his veins, can feel his whole body tense against the implication under Shizuo's words, as if there's the sudden pressure of a countdown following along with every beat of his heart. _This is fine_ , he says, hissing the words to a vicious edge even in the mental space they are sharing and hoping it will be enough to cover up the hurt in his chest, enough to disguise the surge of flinching unhappiness that spills from the barriers of his own mind and into the shared space between them. _We'll get them eventually. Am I really_ that _horrible to put up with that you want to try something that probably won't even work just to be done a few weeks sooner?_

Izaya can feel the way Shizuo recoils mentally as much as physically; he actually takes a half-step back from Kujiragi, his body acting out the focus in his head in that way it so often does, with him. _Why are you so upset?_

 _I'm not upset_ , Izaya snaps, feeling insincerity freeze the words to chill ice on his tongue. _I just don't want to do this._

"Heiwajima-kun?" Kujiragi says. She's still watching them, her expression still devoid of any but the most casual interest. For a moment Izaya loathes every part of that calm composure. "You should really try it at least once, and you should be compatible enough to manage it with how many souls you've already collected. I can walk you through the process."

Shizuo frowns; Izaya can feel the hiss of frustration against the inside of his head, can feel the edges of irritation curling into the start of the electric Soul Force that sparks down his blade and so threatens to sweep him away into part of something larger than himself, something unbearably _more_ than the confined space he's created for his own existence. "Izaya doesn't want to."

"Orihara-kun didn't care to partner with you originally either, and yet now he's barely a dozen souls away from becoming a Death Weapon," Kujiragi informs them with that same emotionless calm. "This is your assignment for today's class. Please attempt Soul Resonance with your partner."

The polite phrasing is a lie in itself; there's no space in the set of Kujiragi's shoulders for refusal in this. Shizuo's frown twists, his fingers tighten hard against the handle of Izaya's weapon form; and then he takes a breath, and thinks _Let's just_ try, and Izaya has had enough.

" _No!_ " he says, and the one word takes shape in the air around them instead of just inside Shizuo's head, the negation snapping loud enough to echo in the classroom as Izaya shoves himself away from weapon form, out of Shizuo's head, back from the impulse to agree that he knows will sweep him away with it if he lingers too long with Shizuo's soul wavelength calling out to his. There are promises of closeness there, of acceptance, of _belonging_ in a way Izaya has never belonged to anyone anywhere, and he's not stupid enough to let himself believe that siren song when he's old enough to know those promises for the lies they are. Shizuo will leave, Izaya knows it, he can count the days to abandonment with every soul he swallows down, and Izaya can't let the meister take a part of his own soul with him when he does. His feet hit the floor, his knees quiver and try to buckle, but his hands are closed into fists, and what his balance can't manage his willpower makes up for to force his footing to stability under him as he lifts his head to glare incandescent fury at Kujiragi.

"No," he repeats again, a little softer now even though it doesn't make a difference, even though the whole of the classroom has stopped its movement for the disparate meisters and weapons to turn and blink shock at him. Shizuo's watching him too, Izaya can feel the meister's stare as hot as flame against his skin, but he doesn't turn to meet the other's gaze, he ignores Shizuo as much as he ignores everyone else. "I'm _not_ going to Resonate with him. I'm not going to Resonate with _anyone_. I'm going to collect my hundred souls and I'm going to _leave_."

Kujiragi blinks at him with infuriating calm. "As the instructor of your class-"

"You can go to hell," Izaya snaps at her. "I don't give a damn about your requirements or your class." And he's turning on his heel, fast, before Kujiragi has a chance to keep talking, striding away towards the door without consideration for the shocked stares that follow him from the other students in the class. There's one shout: " _Izaya!_ " from a voice impossible for Izaya to entirely ignore; but he hunches his shoulders, and speeds his steps, and shoves the door open to escape into the hallway without admitting he heard his name at all.

If he doesn't turn, Shizuo will never find out how much he wanted to answer that call.


	14. Open

Izaya's at home when Shizuo gets back from class.

Shizuo hadn't been completely sure he would be. He was delayed by the few minutes it took him to break free of conversation with the instructor, and by the time he collected his things and the coat left behind in Izaya's precipitous departure the other was nowhere to be seen. Shizuo had tried sending a text; but the hum of sound he got in response came from the pocket of the jacket slung over his shoulder, so he gave up on attempted contact and headed straight back to their apartment instead. It's a few blocks away from Shibusen, enough time for Shizuo to wonder if Izaya will be there at all or if he'll just vanish into the shadows of the city for the rest of the afternoon; but the door is unlocked when Shizuo gets home, and Izaya's shoes are in the entryway, and when he looks to the couch Izaya's curled up on one end of it, his knees drawn in close against his chest and both arms wrapped around them like he's trying to build a defensive wall out of his body alone. The television's on but the sound is muted, and what's playing looks like a commercial anyway; Shizuo is very sure that Izaya is paying more attention to the sound of his movement at the door than to the flicker of color on the screen in front of him.

"I brought your jacket back," Shizuo says by way of greeting, draping the coat over one of the hangers by the door and reaching into the pocket to fish the phone free as he slides his shoes off. "And your cell phone." He crosses the distance to the couch in a pair of strides and leans in to brace an arm against the back so he can reach out and offer the phone in Izaya's peripheral vision.

Izaya's gaze flickers sideways to catch against the shape of the phone in Shizuo's fingers, his mouth tenses on a frown. "Thanks," he says without any suggestion of sincerity on the sound, and lets one of his arms go so he can take the phone from Shizuo's grip. He unlocks it one-handed, his attention dropping to linger against the display as the lock screen opens into a generic geometric background; Shizuo can see his forehead crease, can watch Izaya's mouth tense as he sees the notification. "You called me?"

"Yeah," Shizuo says. "I wanted to know where you were."

That's enough to turn Izaya's head, to get Shizuo the full focus of the other's gaze for a moment; then Izaya's mouth twists, and he ducks his head back down over his knees, and when he says "Oh" it's as dismissive as the toss his gives his phone to send it sliding across the unoccupied couch cushions next to him.

Shizuo heaves a sigh. "Izaya, you-"

"I'm not going back," Izaya says sharply, glaring attention at the new commercial flickering unheard across the television screen. "Kujiragi can fail me out of her class if she wants, you can't make me go back."

Shizuo frowns. "I wasn't going to-"

"We're almost done anyway," Izaya says, talking over Shizuo's protest without giving him time to finish speaking. "We only need another sixteen souls and we'll be done with each other, I don't see why we need Soul Resonance to get them."

Shizuo's fingers tighten against the back of the couch. "Izaya-"

"I'll find another meister if I have to." Izaya's arms are tightening around his knees, his jaw is setting tighter with every word out of his mouth. "I'm sure I could get Shinra to go with me for a few missions. If you're going to insist on-"

"Shut _up_ ," Shizuo snaps, and Izaya does, his head turning in immediate, involuntary reaction to the crack of the other's voice. For a moment they're looking right at each other, Izaya's eyes wide and bright with emotion and Shizuo's whole expression dragging itself into the weight of a frown; and then Shizuo takes a breath and keeps talking, while Izaya is still shocked to speechlessness by the force of his words.

"We don't have to learn Soul Resonance," he says, the words harsh enough that they sound almost like an insult. Izaya's eyes go wider, Izaya's jaw eases fractionally, but Shizuo is still talking without giving the other a moment to collect himself to calm. "That's what I was going to tell you right when I first came in. If you don't want to try it we won't." He looks down at his hands digging white-knuckled pressure against the couch, takes a deep breath and lets some of the tension ease along with his grip. "I don't get what you're so panicked about, but that's fine. You don't have to explain yourself. You don't want to, so we won't." He turns his head to frown at Izaya from under the fall of his hair. "Okay?"

Izaya is staring at him. His eyes are wide, his mouth slightly open; he looks like he's never seen Shizuo before, as if he's staring at a complete stranger and trying to figure out where the other came from. It reminds Shizuo inexplicably of their first interaction, of the weight of a knife handle against his palm and the soft _oh_ of an unfamiliar voice in the back of his head.

Izaya blinks, shuts his mouth, swallows carefully. "Okay," he says. "If you say so."

"I do," Shizuo says. "I do say so." He lets his hold on the back of the couch go and straightens from his forward lean, letting the tension of support ease from his shoulders. "You fight with me on the missions we sign up for and you eat the souls we collect. That's enough for me, I won't try to make you do anything else." He turns towards the hallway and takes a step along the back of the couch; when he reaches out it's to touch against the top of Izaya's head, to weight the angle of his fingers against the soft dark of the other's hair. "You can count on me."

Izaya takes a breath, the sound of it coming hard enough in his throat for Shizuo to hear clearly against the quiet of the apartment; but all he says is, "Yeah," the word too soft in his throat for Shizuo to discern any clear emotion from the sound. Shizuo presses a little harder against Izaya's hair, shifts his fingers to ruffle gentle friction against the strands; and then he draws his hand away and continues on down the hallway to retreat into his own room and leave Izaya to whatever privacy he wants.

He leaves the bedroom door open anyway, just in case.


	15. Compatible

"Shit," Shizuo hisses as he rummages through the bathroom cabinet for the first aid kid. "I'm so sorry."

"Stop apologizing," Izaya snaps at him. He's sitting on the tiled floor, his shoulders pressing against the support of the wall behind him and one hand weighting hard against his side; it's helping, he thinks, but the wound is still fresh enough to ooze the warm wet of blood across his fingers to drip off the angle of his wrist. "You didn't know it had a soul wavelength attack any more than I did."

"I shouldn't have used you to block like that," Shizuo says without turning around. There's a clatter of sound as a handful of objects are knocked over inside the cabinet, but Shizuo is pulling the kit free, and Izaya will complain about the mess the other made later. "If I had used Soul Force instead-"

"Without a weapon you would have been destroyed," Izaya cuts him off shortly. "Stop wallowing in guilt and give me the anesthetic."

"I'm not _wallowing_ ," Shizuo growls, but he's turning back anyway, kneeling in front of Izaya and laying the first aid kit out flat so he can open the latch and swing the top open. There's an assortment of bandages and bottles inside; Shizuo shoves through them without much care for the logical order they've been placed in before pulling a tube of topical anesthetic out of the mess he's made. "Let me see how bad it is."

"Reassuring phrasing," Izaya tells him, but he lifts his hand obediently, pulling his blood-smeared fingers away from the sticky damp of his shirt. There's no cut in the fabric - apparently clothing doesn't show injuries taken while in weapon form - but he can feel the ache of hurt run up against the whole of his side as he shifts his arm over his head so Shizuo can peel his shirt off his skin. The drag against the half-clotted injury makes Izaya hiss and tightens his fingers into an involuntary fist of reaction, but Shizuo is uncapping the anesthetic before Izaya can put voice to his demand for it and reaching out to smear the cool of the cream against the scored-in wound just against the bottom edge of Izaya's ribs. There's a flicker of sensation, the start of a sharp protest to the friction from damaged skin; and then immediate relief as the anesthetic takes effect to spread numbness across Izaya's body in an inch-wide strip following Shizuo's touch.

"Better?" Shizuo asks.

Izaya tips his head back against the wall. "Finally," he allows, and lets his fingers uncurl. Shizuo's recapping the anesthetic and pushing it back into the kit; Izaya can hear the crinkle of the other's touch dragging over the sterile wrappers for the bandages as he looks for one of sufficient size. "Does it need stitches?"

"What?" Shizuo lifts his head from what he's doing to frown consideration at Izaya's side. "I don't think so." He reaches out to touch against the injury, his fingertips unusually gentle as they weight Izaya's skin; Izaya can barely feel the contact at all past the cool thrum of the anesthetic numbing his skin out of attention. "It's barely bleeding at all anymore."

Izaya looks down. Shizuo's right; there's a spread of pale pink across his side, halfway up his ribcage and down nearly to the top of his jeans, but the cut itself doesn't look as bad as Izaya was worried it was, and there's only a thin trickle of blood now fast-drying against his skin. It's cleaner than he expected, too; with the blood clotting to a scab it looks almost as if someone took a marker to his skin to draw in a poor imitation of an actual wound.

"Oh," he says. "Good." Shizuo looks back to the kit and reaches for one of the packets of sterile gauze, and Izaya hisses to stop him, lifting his clean hand from the floor to wave him away. "You have to clean it first. Isn't there some antiseptic in there somewhere?"

"Oh, right." Shizuo sets the packet aside and delves back into the mess he's made of the kit, emerging with a handful of individually wrapped antiseptic wipes. "Just give me a minute."

"I'm in no rush," Izaya tells him. The anesthetic is doing its job well; with every breath he takes the numb sinks a little deeper into the dull ache across his side and pushes the pain a little farther away. By the time Shizuo has one of the wipes unwrapped and is reaching to draw it across Izaya's skin even the sting of the damp in the open wound is distant, a flicker of almost ticklish sensation more than true pain. Izaya lets himself lean a little harder against the wall, lets his attention hold to the tangle of Shizuo's hair across his forehead and the tension in the other's features as he frowns attention at Izaya's side. It's pleasant, in a strange way, to have someone's attention so completely fixed on him, to have Shizuo's full focus turned to wiping the smeared blood off his skin and away from the edges of the cut across his side. It's not until Shizuo is done with the antiseptic and reaching again for the gauze and bandages that Izaya even stirs enough to think of the other's condition.

"Are _you_ hurt?" he asks without moving his arm from its angle up over his head. Shizuo is pressing the gauze against his injury and wrapping the end of a bandage around it to hold it in place; he doesn't look up at the question. "I was a little distracted there at the end."

Shizuo huffs a laugh. "Yeah, me too." He draws the bandage around Izaya's waist and braces his fingers at the other's skin to urge him forward; Izaya sits up obediently and leans forward to give Shizuo the space to unwind the bandage around his back. For a moment Shizuo's arm is caught around him, Izaya's leaning hard against the other's shoulder; if he let his arm fall it would catch around the other's neck, would drop them into the actuality of an embrace instead of just the seeming of one. Then Shizuo loops the bandage around itself, and leans back again, and Izaya straightens his shoulders to hold himself deliberately upright as Shizuo brings the bandage around for another pass. "I'm fine. You took most of that attack instead of me, I don't think I'll even have a bruise."

"Good for you," Izaya drawls. " _I_ definitely will."

"I know." Shizuo unwinds the last of the bandage and braces it in place while he clips it steady; when he draws his hands away the pressure of the bandage lingers like an echo of the weight of his touch. "Sorry. I'll bring you some ice for it if you want."

"I can get it myself," Izaya tells him. When he shifts his arm his shirt slides back down over the bandage; he tugs at the hem to straighten it on his shoulders. "I'm not completely crippled by this."

"I know." Shizuo shuts the first aid kit, overcoming disorder with sheer force to get the lid to shut on the mess he's made of the contents. "I just want to help." He pushes to his feet, picking up the kit in one hand and offering the other for Izaya; his fingers are relaxed, like they're waiting to close around the resistance of Izaya's. "Don't be sulky. Usually I'm the one with bruises and cuts, I'm happy to look after you in exchange for a few days without any new injuries."

Izaya raises his eyebrows. "I can't believe you're trading my physical well-being in exchange for a few minutes of inconvenience to you" but he's reaching up all the same, settling his hand against Shizuo's and letting the other's grip close around his wrist before he lets the force of Shizuo's movement pull him to his feet in a single effortless action. "You're really not thinking ahead, Shizu-chan, this is _days_ of inconvenience to you. We're not going to be able to go back out again for those last few souls until I'm recovered." Izaya tries to pull his hand free of Shizuo's hold, tries to draw it back as casually as he accepted the initial offer; but Shizuo's grip is unbreakable and unyielding, and he has to stop after a moment or give away the fact that he can't pull free under his own strength. He can feel the heat of the other's hold prickling up his arm all the way to his shoulder. "Unless you want to steal some one-star missions from the new kids and go out after them on your own." Izaya huffs a laugh that sticks somewhere in the back of his throat, like it's trying to choke him before he can force it into sound. "Or was that your plan all along? If you wanted me to stand aside, all you had to do was ask, you know."

Shizuo blinks into focus on Izaya's face. "What?" He looks as sincerely confused as he sounds, like he's not making sense of Izaya's words or maybe missing the implication under them. "I don't want to go out on my own." He frowns. "Of course we'll wait until you're better."

"We only have a few souls left," Izaya points out, even though the words clutter his tongue with weight and try to stick against the back of his teeth before he can force them out. Shizuo is still holding his hand. Izaya can feel his fingers starting to tremble against the other's hold. "It's a shame you're being delayed so close to getting rid of me."

Shizuo's forehead creases. "I'm not _getting rid of you_ ," he says, and for a brief moment Izaya's heart skips on a beat, his breath catching and straining for some interpretation other than the one Shizuo means, his mind surging warm with desperate hope that Shizuo has somehow seen past him, has somehow worked out what it is Izaya wants more with every passing day, what he can't bear to ask for the certainty of rejection that will come with the answer. Then Shizuo's hold on his hand eases, the meister drops his grip with casual ease, and Izaya's heart sinks back to its usual depths as Shizuo goes on, "I'm making you a Death Weapon. You'll be set for life after that, right?"

Izaya tightens his fingers hard against his palm. "Of course," he says. "I'll have it made, Shizu-chan." He ducks his head and turns towards the door. "You're the one who'll have to start all over. Looking forward to finding a new weapon partner to work with?"

"Oh." Shizuo sounds strange; there's a hesitance on his voice Izaya hasn't heard before, like a weight just in the back of his throat. Izaya doesn't turn around to see what expression goes with that tone. "I don't know. I hadn't thought about it."

"Don't worry about it," Izaya says, reaching out to pull the door open with a little more force than the action technically requires. "You can't find someone less compatible with you than me." And he steps out into the hallway, punctuating his words with a too-fast stride to carry him down the hall and to the safety of his locked bedroom door.

If Shizuo starts to follow him, Izaya doesn't turn around to see it.


	16. Absence

"Is that Shizu-chan?" Izaya calls down the length of the hallway while Shizuo is still pushing the front door shut behind him. "Have you finally decided to grace us with your presence once more?"

"What 'us'?" Shizuo shouts back, toeing his shoes off in quick succession before stepping out of the entryway and looking down the hall. Izaya's bedroom door is open by a few inches; not enough for Shizuo to see any details of the interior, but enough to allow for the sound of their voices to carry clearly without the barrier of a wall. Shizuo frowns at the door, feeling vaguely that something is out-of-the-ordinary about it; and then it swings open the rest of the way and Izaya emerges, effectively scattering Shizuo's thoughts from their course. "Do you have an array of other roommates I should know about?"

Izaya rolls his eyes. "Of course not," he says, coming down the hallway with the graceful stride that always makes him look a little bit like he's dancing, or skipping, as if the whole of his body is too overfull with energy to let him walk with a more sedate pace. "I'm being poetic. I should have known my attempts at linguistic appeal would be lost on you." He passes close by Shizuo without bothering to turn aside; the sleeve of his shirt catches against Shizuo's, his shoulder bumps the other's arm with more glancing impact than painful force, and then he's slipping past to continue towards the kitchen.

"Where were you?" he asks while Shizuo is still turning to watch him. Izaya catches his fingers at the edge of the kitchen counter, using the weight of his touch as a pivot point as he moves. "Weapon class ended over an hour ago. Did you get into trouble for picking a fight with another meister?"

"No," Shizuo says to the back of Izaya's shoulders. "I got called in to speak with the headmaster."

Izaya looks back over his shoulder from where he's going through the pantry, his mouth tugging on the delighted amusement Shizuo knew this pronouncement would bring with it. "That bad?" He looks back, stretching to reach for the coffee grounds tucked behind the bread. "Did you get called out for being a public nuisance?" Izaya turns around to the counter, coffee successfully retrieved; he's still grinning down at his hands as he sets the bag down and reaches for the kettle. "I've always told you, if you can't get a handle on your temper you're no better than a monster."

"That wasn't it." Shizuo frowns, his attention derailed by the evidence of what Izaya is in the process of making. "Isn't it kind of late for coffee?"

"It's never too late for coffee," Izaya says without looking up from the kettle in his hands.

"It _is_ ," Shizuo insists. "If you have that much caffeine right now you'll never be able to sleep tonight. Have some tea instead."

Izaya rolls his eyes. "Don't you think I know my own caffeine tolerance better than you do?" he asks, but he's setting the kettle aside and turning back to the pantry anyway. "Why _did_ Akabayashi want to see you, then?"

"What?" Shizuo has to struggle to resume the original thread of conversation from the brief aside into Izaya's excessive indulgence in coffee. "Oh. He wanted to talk to me about an assignment."

"Our last one?" Izaya asks without turning around from the pantry. "I told you we should have gone after that one earlier in the day. We could have taken it out within the hour if we had left immediately."

"Not a past assignment," Shizuo says. Izaya goes still, his movement in front of the pantry stalling; it's as if Shizuo's words have made a statue of him, as if Izaya has dropped out of time for the span of a few breaths. "A new one." Shizuo reaches into his pocket to pull out the weight of the tag he's carried for the last half-hour as he made his way home; it's no thicker than the usual mission assignments, and logically it can hardly be much heavier, but it's felt weighty enough to drag against his hip the whole way home, like it's trying to pull him off-balance with every step. "He found a witch for us to go after."

"Oh," Izaya says.

Shizuo lifts his head and pulls his attention away from the tag and back to Izaya. The other hasn't moved at all; he's still turned to face the open pantry, still has one hand bracing at the door next to him. His shoulders are perfectly straight, his arm looks nearly relaxed; but his fingers are tense at the edge of the door, and the color is slipping away from his skin to leave his knuckles white with tension even as Shizuo watches.

"We can do this," Shizuo says, tasting the words for the truth he knows them to be as they fall past his lips. "It'll be fine."

"Of course," Izaya says, his voice as distant as if he's reciting words from a script. His hand hasn't eased at the door. Shizuo doesn't know how to undo the tension across the other's shoulders.

"It's almost over," he says, trying to offer the comfort of the goal made familiar by months of repetition, even if the words twist to bitter on his tongue and ache against the inside of his chest with anticipation of the loss to come. "You'll be a Death Weapon just like you want. We'll be fine. You don't need to be scared."

" _Scared_ ," Izaya repeats, and for just a moment his voice is so rough Shizuo almost doesn't recognize the sound of it, as if a stranger has suddenly taken the place of the partner he's had for the last year. He swings the pantry door shut with far more force than needed, letting the weight of it clatter shut as he twists away from his interrupted perusal of its contents. "I'm not _scared_." And he's moving, coming back out of the kitchen with such a rushed pace that Shizuo doesn't have time to get a good look at the other's expression, doesn't even have time to move aside before Izaya is shoving past him again. His shoulder catches at Shizuo's, slamming into the other with enough force to bruise; Shizuo stumbles a half-step back but Izaya knocks himself off-balance too, nearly falling before he can catch himself. Shizuo reaches out with some half-formed thought of catching Izaya's elbow and holding the other steady against the effect of his own movement; but Izaya's slipping past him before Shizuo can get a hold on him, turning sideways to pull his arm out of range of Shizuo's hold and escaping down the hall while Shizuo is still closing his fingers on empty air.

"Izaya," Shizuo starts, turning to trail Izaya's movement down the hallway while he's still fumbling for what to say, while he's still struggling to make any kind of sense out of the other's reaction; but Izaya is vanishing past the entrance to his bedroom, and when he slams the door behind him it's hard enough to rattle the weight of it in the frame. Shizuo grimaces just from the force of the sound alone, and then there's the _click_ of the lock sliding home from the other side of the door, and Shizuo is sure without needing to be told that he won't be getting any further conversation out of Izaya tonight.

He tries anyway. "Izaya?" he calls to the other side of the shut door, rapping his knuckles against the barrier as if Izaya is likely to hear the sound of a knock more clearly than the call of his name. "Izaya, what's wrong?" But there's no answer from the other side of the door, not even a rustle of movement to prove Izaya's presence; as far as Shizuo can hear, the other may as well have become the statue he seemed in the kitchen for that brief moment. Shizuo knocks twice, calls out as often; and then he gives up, and leaves Izaya to whatever incomprehensible thoughts are in his head while he goes to the kitchen to put away the coffee and kettle left behind in Izaya's incomplete attempt at caffeine. It's the matter of a few moments to put them away and leave the counter as clear as if it's gone untouched all day; Shizuo stands staring at the surface for longer than he should, feeling his spine prickle with uncomfortable awareness that this is how it'll be for him all the time, as soon as Izaya becomes a Death Weapon and moves into his own apartment. There'll be no one to fill the pantry with the coffee Shizuo doesn't drink or to swipe the last bottle of milk out of spite more than real desire; no one to leave any mark on the surroundings except for what Shizuo does himself. Shizuo wonders vaguely if he'll have to move out, if he'll need to go back to his original one-bedroom apartment and leave this for a matched pair to move into. He wonders if he'd be able to stand living here alone, without Izaya to fill up the space with the constant thousand proofs of his presence.

"Fuck," he says aloud, offering the sharp edges of the word to the empty kitchen and the silent space around him, and then he heads back down the hallway to follow Izaya's example and shut himself up in the relative privacy of his own room.

At least in his bedroom the lack of Izaya's presence doesn't feel like such an absence.


	17. Strength

It'll be over, after this.

Izaya comforts himself with that. It's the only thing he's had to go on for the last handful of days, the only thing that has kept him going through the most basic motions of his existence with nothing but strained silence between Shizuo and himself. It's been three days since Shizuo came home with the assignment from Akabayashi and two since Izaya emerged from his bedroom to find Shizuo standing in front of the door to the refrigerator with an untouched bottle of milk in his hand and his unfocused gaze fixed on the contents of the fridge itself. Izaya had paused in the entrance to the hallway, his body freezing him in place while he considered staging a retreat before Shizuo saw him there; but Shizuo had spoken first, had said "We're going after her Friday" without turning around or offering any emotion but flat certainty on the words. Izaya hadn't answered, hadn't made any indication that he heard; but Shizuo looked back to see him there, and in the moment their eyes met Izaya knew his fate was absolutely, irrevocably sealed.

He hasn't gone to class. There's no point, not when everything will all be irrelevant for him soon anyway; there's no chance they'll lose, no chance that they'll end up incapacitated and hospitalized and delay his graduation to a Death Weapon for another span of time. Izaya thinks about sabotage, briefly, lying across his bed and staring at the ceiling for the hours that span the middle of the day; but he thinks Shizuo might just drop him entirely if he tries something, thinks the meister might go after the witch with his bare hands, and Izaya doesn't think he can stand to watch someone else unmake his life without at least taking an active role in the destruction. So he's doomed, trapped by Akabayashi's assignment and Shizuo's determination and his own nature, and all he can do is wait behind the locked door of his bedroom for the time to slip past. The days seem endless, the night too short, but they pass all the same, until finally it's Shizuo's knock against the door and Shizuo's voice calling "Izaya" that summons him from his introspection. He opens the door slowly, delaying the moment as long as possible; but then it's open, and Shizuo's standing there gazing at him with his whole expression so entirely blank even Izaya is impressed. Izaya thinks about speaking, thinks about finding words for the ache of anticipated loss inside his chest; but Shizuo extends his hand, and says, "It's time," and whatever opportunity there was for more is gone. Izaya transforms without speaking, dropping himself into what comfort metal and edge can give him, and when Shizuo's fingers close around him he settles into the back of the other's head without making any attempt to reach out for control. It's the first time he's ever let the moment pass untried; but if Shizuo notices he doesn't say anything, and when he turns towards the door it's without so much as a murmur of thought for Izaya's benefit.

They stay quiet for the whole of the walk through the city. Izaya didn't know that anyone's thoughts could be as still and calm as Shizuo's are; but then, he's not offering anything either, his awareness is just as breathlessly still against the back of the meister's head. Izaya can feel the tension of Shizuo's fingers bracing against the handle of his weapon form, can feel the heat of the other's body pressing in against him as if to grant his inhuman shape some measure of living warmth; if he thinks about it he can feel the rhythm of Shizuo's heartbeat thudding through the veins of his hand, can feel the unconscious pattern of the other's existence glowing against him like sunlight. He tries not to think about it.

"Here," Shizuo murmurs aloud, as they clear the last line of apartment complexes and office buildings and emerge into the true outskirts of the city, where buildings give way to trees and grass grows wild instead of inside neatly manicured squares. He shifts his grip, sliding his thumb up against the join of Izaya's handle to the blade as if in expectation of the fight they haven't started yet. "Almost there."

He doesn't have to speak aloud. After a year of working together he should know that without being told; but Izaya doesn't say anything in response, either to reply or to call out the other for his audible conversation. He's not sure the words were really meant for him - they have almost the pattern of self-reassurance under them, like Shizuo is speaking just for what comfort the sound of his own voice can offer - and besides it's easier to take the low rumble of Shizuo's voice at a distance, heard secondhand through the meister's ears instead of pressing directly against Izaya's psyche. It's better this way, Izaya is sure, easier if he can maintain his distance in expectation of the separation to come; and then there's another voice, softer and higher than the growling weight of Shizuo's, following so close on the other's words that it nearly has the rhythm of a conversation.

"It's getting late." The sound comes far off to their right, from the shadows behind one of the wide-spreading branches of the trees that mark out the edge of the city; Shizuo pivots at once, twisting to face the speaker as he lifts Izaya up in front of him in a defensive angle. There's motion far back in the shadows, a form emerging barely into view; Izaya can't make out any of the details of the shape except for the height, a handful of inches shorter than Shizuo's, and the curving silhouette of the other's body that says the physical form is a match for the feminine lilt of the voice. "You're a Shibusen student, aren't you? Shouldn't you be at home studying for your tests like a good little boy?"

"Who are you?" Shizuo asks without shifting his position at all. Izaya can hear the frown at his lips just from the sound of his voice. "What do you want?"

"Is that your weapon partner?" The shape takes another step forward, her features flickering in the fading light from the city limits. Izaya thinks there's a smile at her lips, or maybe a sneer; he can't make out the details from this range and with this lighting. "Are you out on a mission?" Another step, a third; the light catches to a shine against the side of the figure's face, glinting oddly off the angle of her hand at her side. "Looking for a big bad witch?"

Shizuo's back foot shifts, angling out by a half-inch. The arm holding Izaya up tenses along its whole length from wrist to shoulder. "You're her."

"You're the third pair to come after me," the shape - the witch - says instead of answering the words that were more a statement than a question anyway. The light slides over her skin, casting her features into clarity for a moment of uncanny detail: her eyes are wide-spaced, the focus in them oddly flat, as if she's not really looking at them at all. Her skin glistens as if with scales, her fingers too-long and showing signs of webbing between the knuckles. Her hair is heavy down her back, a long line of washed-out blond so pale it takes Izaya a moment to realize it's wet, that it's the weight of water pulling it so unnaturally flat against her scalp. "Did they tell you that at your school?" She's closing the gap between them with odd, fluid strides that are hard for Izaya to pay attention to; Shizuo isn't even trying, he's just scowling so hard that Izaya can feel the weight of the meister's frown like it's echoing at his own lips. "I put the first pair in the hospital together. They're still there, probably. Do you want to know what happened to the second?" She's not smiling any more than she is frowning; she's just staring at them with those flat, emotionless eyes, her fingers flexing and easing at her sides like they're fluttering in some unseen liquid or an unfelt wind.

"No," Shizuo says bluntly. "I don't care."

"You're the confident type," the witch observes, still without so much as a flicker of movement over those eyes. Izaya's not sure she has eyelids at all; he hasn't seen her blink since she stepped forward into the light. "They always are." And then she's moving, without any warning, far faster than her slow approach had led Izaya to believe she could; she crosses the remaining feet of distance in the span of a breath, lunging forward into striking range while Shizuo is still taking a sharp inhale of shock. Izaya hisses incoherent warning, adrenaline surging to liquid fire in him as he braces himself against the blow that will surely-and Shizuo swings him up, moving through a clean arc of action to catch the forward motion of the witch's arm with Izaya's blade. The angle is wrong - the blow lands against the flat instead of the edge before either of them can twist Izaya to face outward - but it's enough to stop the impact and buy Shizuo a moment to stumble backwards by a few rushed steps.

 _She's fast_ , Shizuo says, the words coming in a low murmur in the back of his mind.

 _No shit_ , Izaya snaps back. _Look out, she's-_ but the witch is already on top of them, swinging in with her other hand towards Shizuo's face. Shizuo lifts his arm in reflexive defense, turning to throw the whole strength of his shoulder behind the barrier; and the witch's skin touches his, and an impact like an earthquake jolts through them so hard Izaya can feel it scatter all his attention even secondhand. Shizuo grunts at the force, his back foot slipping by a half-inch, but when the witch draws back all he does is shake his arm out, as if to shed the numbing force of what should have been enough to shatter all the bones in his shoulder at once.

"You're strong," the witch says, a flat admission of fact, and then she's coming back in again, cutting off the distance between them and reaching out to press the wet of her fingertips against Shizuo again. Shizuo swings his free arm sideways, catches a blow to skid it into only glancing contact; the force is still enough to blow the air from his lungs in an involuntary huff of air, but he's moving without waiting to take another breath, turning his whole body sideways and lunging forward with his fingers curled into the tight angle of a fist around Izaya's weapon form. Izaya can feel the strength of Shizuo's grip on him, can feel the pressure of each finger individually around the handle of his weapon form; and then his edge catches against cloth, drags through fabric to touch down against skin, and the resistance that meets him skids through his entire awareness with a sensation like the sound of nails dragging across sleek metal. The witch's skin is tougher than any skin should be, rough and grating like sandpaper and solid as a brick wall; Izaya can't get traction against the surface, even when Shizuo twists against his handle, and when he does gain any depth it's only by a half-inch, barely enough to score a line across the witch's body. Shizuo's thumb braces hard against the back of Izaya's blade, his arm flexes to drag the knife edge through the uncanny resistance of the witch's form, and Izaya can feel the strain run straight through him as if his spine is arching backwards, as if he's being forced into an unnatural curve between the resistance of the witch's body and the force of Shizuo's motion.

Izaya doesn't know what sound he makes. It must be a scream, he thinks, either voiced or the immediate mental impression of one; it's certainly incoherent, as there's no space anywhere in his head for rational speech. Shizuo hisses, the sound loud against the backdrop of agony washing Izaya's focus to crimson red; and then the pressure is gone, the awful strain of the attempted attack broken off as Shizuo pulls Izaya back and takes a few long strides to put them out of the witch's range.

 _Izaya_. Shizuo's voice comes fast, snapping out as harsh as a blow; if it weren't caught in the gap of their shared mental space Izaya would call it a shout. _Izaya, are you okay?_

 _I'm fine_ , Izaya says, even though he's sure his hands would be shaking if he were in human form, even though he's not sure he would be able to hold himself upright if it weren't for Shizuo's grip against the handle of his knife form forcing him to steadiness. For a moment he had been sure Shizuo was going to keep pushing, had been sure his blade was going to- _You have bigger things to worry about_.

 _Shit_ and Shizuo is bringing up his other arm again, twisting this time so he takes the witch's blow full on his shoulder instead of the less sturdy resistance of his arm. It seems like a good idea as he moves; but the blow lands so hard Izaya swears he can hear bone creak in protest to the force, is sure Shizuo's cough is more of pain than just a reflexive response to the hit landing against his shoulderblade. _I can't attack her with you._

 _What?_ Izaya snaps. Shizuo turns back, swinging at the witch's face with his bare fist; but the movement lacks force with his shoulder still shaky from the last blow, and it's barely enough to convince the witch to fall back a few steps. Izaya's not even sure Shizuo was bothering to use Soul Force to strengthen the attempted punch. _You can't_ not _use me, even you can't take down a witch bare-handed._

 _What else am I supposed to do?_ Shizuo tosses back. _That last one hurt you, don't tell me you could have taken much more of that._

 _I could have_ , Izaya says, forcing the statement out without the least certainty it's true. He had felt the strain all along the steel edge of his blade; much more and he's sure the metal would have given way, would have snapped like dry wood under too much weight. He doesn't know what happens to weapons who break while in weapon form. He doesn't particularly want to find out, and especially not first-hand, but: _You_ have _to, we're never going to win otherwise._

 _So we lose_ , Shizuo tells him. The witch lands another blow, this one low, just under the edge of the meister's ribcage; it's enough to make Shizuo stumble, enough to wheeze his breathing onto pain. _We lose and get another assignment, to a different witch._

 _You_ idiot, Izaya hisses. _We don't_ get _another assignment if we lose, she'll_ kill _you._ The witch drops low and reaches for Shizuo's knee; the meister tips his weight back and kicks hard towards her face, but she sweeps aside as easily as if she's being carried on the currents in the flow of air and the blow misses her entirely. _You have to use me._

 _You'll break_. Shizuo sounds stubborn, as if the words are the end of the conversation; from the way he lowers Izaya to his side, Izaya is afraid he thinks they are. _I'm not going to do that to you._

 _You_ have _to_ , Izaya shouts, but Shizuo's jaw is setting and Izaya is sure he's not listening, he can feel Shizuo's rejection of his demand like the other is building a wall to seal Izaya away in the back of his head. _Shizuo, you have to, use-_ and an idea presents itself, the thought so clear Izaya's speech barely hesitates over the end of the sentence. _Use Soul Force_.

 _That'll just make it worse_. Shizuo sounds rock-solid, like rejecting Izaya's suggestions is a secondary effort, something he's doing with half of his attention while he continues to weather the glancing blows and unexpected attacks from the witch darting in front of them. _You get brittle when I use Soul Force, that's the opposite of what we want._

 _Not_ on _me,_ Izaya says. _Through me. Send it through my wavelength instead of over it, like how you make yourself stronger._

 _What?_ Shizuo swings his hand holding Izaya up towards the witch, but he has the knife blade turned around; it's the handle that he hits with, slamming the weight of it hard against the wet slick of damp hair. It would be enough to knock out any human opponent; the witch barely hesitates in the flurry of her attacks. _How do you know I won't hurt you?_

 _I don't._ Izaya can still feel the ache of relieved strain clinging to his awareness, can feel his consciousness flinching back from the unknown pressure Shizuo's soul wavelength might exert; but he's bracing himself anyway, setting himself in expectation for something he's never experienced and can't predict. _Just do it._

Izaya expects Shizuo to resist. He's ready for a set jaw, for a growl of refusal from the other; he's already moving on to his backup plan, already reaching for his own wavelength and letting the purr of jealous possessiveness unwind into the back of his thoughts. He's never been able to overpower Shizuo before, and he's unlikely to succeed now; but _maybe you can keep him_ , desperation murmurs, _if you can take over you can keep him alive_ and Izaya's sure he's never had more motivation to succeed than he does at this exact moment. He's reaching out before Shizuo answers, stretching mental fingers to clutch and grab at whatever of the other's psyche he can reach; and it's just as he makes contact that Shizuo's wavelength lances through him, and everything else is blown clear out of his mind.

Izaya's never felt anything like this. Their usual fights he's grown accustomed to if not comfortable with; he knows how to brace himself against the lure of Shizuo's Soul Force, knows how to grit his teeth and steel his thoughts and push back with all his strength against the unconscious power the other exerts. But that was all incidental, that was the secondhand effect of Shizuo's wavelength just washing over him, a matter of being a bystander in the other's presence compared to this: Shizuo reaching for him, Shizuo _catching_ him, Shizuo's soul wavelength rushing clear through everything that Izaya has made of himself like sunlight bursting over a darkened horizon, like illumination bright and blinding for eyes that have never known anything but darkness. Izaya's falling, he's drowning, he's lost his support and he's losing himself without any chance to hold his self back; but something grabs at him, like ethereal fingers closing tight around the outflung reach of his own Soul Possession, and Izaya just has time to realize what's happening in the moment before the barrier between himself and Shizuo disintegrates into the all-encompassing thrum of Soul Resonance. Izaya tries to take a breath, and Shizuo's the one who gasps an inhale, and Izaya's both of them at once: the blade glowing in the meister's hand, the edge razor-sharp enough to cut through the air itself, the shine of the metal brightening as if to hold the sun within its edge, and the meister too, the fingers bracing tight around the handle of the weapon and the bruised shoulders tense on the expectation of combat and the feet braced immovably against the ground. Izaya's never felt so strong, has never felt so _solid_ ; the blade in his hand is suffused with his Soul Wavelength, he can feel it knitting together the gaps between the particles of the steel to meld them into a single invincible whole, except it's himself that is being held together, it's Shizuo's wavelength that's mending all the gaps that have formed themselves into the shape that Izaya calls by his own name. The knife is glowing, the blade blinding-bright enough that the witch is flinching back; but the meister's body, Shizuo's body, _their_ body, is flickering with coruscating shadows, as if the darkness of the night has spread into its veins and is rushing to envelop the physical form with tendrils of control. Izaya can feel the beat of Shizuo's heart against his ribcage, can feel the tension straining against his arm and knotting along his back, and possessiveness takes control of his thoughts and growls _mine_ with enough force to echo back on itself into a chorus of jealous need.

He didn't mean to speak. He didn't mean to voice anything at all, in his own thoughts or Shizuo's; if he could tell the difference he wouldn't hear the sound of his own voice echoed back to him like a death knell for the secrecy he has been so struggling to maintain for the last months. His mental footing slips, solidity vanishes to leave him in freefall, to leave him drowning in too-much light as his connection to Shizuo's wavelength fractures, strains, starts to collapse under rising panic-

"Yours," a voice says, the word echoing in someone else's ears, and Izaya's gravity snaps back into place all at once as the link between them reverberates and turns in on itself, folding over the weak points to meld into something stronger for the momentary hesitation. A hand tightens, fingers brace like a wall against Izaya's crumbling balance, and the world rights itself as reality comes back into focus. Something is glowing sun-bright, someone is shifting through shadows clinging as closely to his skin as the night clings to the sky overhead; and somewhere Izaya is shaking, is gasping for air to fill lungs straining with exhilaration and terror in equal parts. The witch is cowering, is stumbling backwards to run up against the barrier of a tree at her back; and they are moving forward, a single unit, a single entity, Izaya's Soul Possession winding around Shizuo's wavelength like an embrace, Shizuo's Soul Force running through Izaya as the magnetism to point him to compass north. Their motion is unthought, instinctive; Shizuo puts no more thought into the downward swing of his arm than Izaya does into sharpening the edge of his blade. They hit as one, Shizuo's strength and Izaya's precision, and this time there's no question of victory, hardly any more hesitation than empty air would give. There's a tearing sound, the give of some rough material to an unstoppable force; and the witch disintegrates around the angle of Izaya's blade, collapsing into flickering shadows that wind around Shizuo's wrist like smoke before they dissipate into the dark of the night sky. The Resonance lingers a moment, a heartbeat; and then Izaya shuts his eyes to the light yet clinging to his blade, and slides back into the shadows, and lets his hold on Shizuo go.

And just like that, it's all over.


	18. Helpless

They are losing the fight.

Shizuo knows they are. He knew they were from the first moment the witch's fingers touched his arm and jolted a wave of force through him, a surge of pressure like he's never felt before. Shizuo knows what power is - he wielded it himself long before he came to Shibusen, tore himself apart over and over until he learned to control or at least bear the strength that everyone here calls Soul Force, that everyone everywhere else calls monstrous. Shizuo had thought there was nothing powerful enough to overwhelm the resistance he has beaten into the fibers and joints of his own body; but the witch touches him, and agony rattles through him, and he knows, right then, how much trouble they're in.

He keeps fighting. Of course he keeps fighting. There's nothing else he can do, not really, not without a deliberately offered opening for escape. But his punches don't carry enough force, and when he catches the knife in his hand under the witch's skin Izaya _screams_ in his head, a raw sound of reflexive agony that has Shizuo snatching the pressure back from the knife in his hold while his skin is still prickling with the first wave of horror. So he can't use his weapon, and his blows are useless, and on top of the distraction of the witch's glancing blows that hit like gunshots and the frantic attempts of Shizuo's limited creativity to find an escape route there's Izaya in the back of his thoughts, gasping demands that bear no more weight than the quivering sound of his voice can. Izaya sounds agonized, sounds like he would be trembling head-to-foot were it not for the stability of his current weapon form, and his insistence: _we don't_ get _another assignment if we lose, she'll_ kill _you_ sounds more like a sob than persuasion. Shizuo can hear the truth on the words, can make out sincerity strange and uncanny under Izaya's voice before it skids high, hitting a high range of pleading so desperate it implies the answer already. _You have to use me_.

 _You'll break_. Shizuo turns himself in towards the witch, offering the barrier of his shoulder and chest between their attacker and the angle of the knife clutched hard in his hand; there's some half-formed thought in his head, a plan to let Izaya escape, at least, if Shizuo can't get them both out together, but that's still hazy, still uncertain, and this one fact he's very clear on. _I'm not going to do that to you._

 _You_ have _to_ but Shizuo pushes the thought back, pushes Izaya back, as if he's practicing for what he knows he's going to have to do in order to get Izaya to transform and escape while Shizuo holds the witch off. Izaya's not going to like it - Shizuo is going to have to force him, there will be no capitulation to his demand this time - but the alternative is so completely pointless as to be utterly unacceptable. Shizuo might not see a way to get himself free of this mess, but Izaya is a weapon, a weapon with a powerful Soul Possession ability who is very nearly a Death Weapon in his own right; surely it's worth saving him, surely there's someone else who can get that last soul for him even if Shizuo proves unable to do it. Izaya's still shouting in the back of his head, his voice a distant distraction as Shizuo braces himself, as Shizuo steels himself for the strength he'll need to use to force Izaya to submit to his will. _Shizuo, you have to, use-use Soul Force_.

Shizuo shakes his head, a quick burst of movement to give vent to the straining frustration rising along his spine. _That'll just make it worse. You get brittle when I use Soul Force, that's the opposite of what we want_. It's bad enough in a regular fight, when the rush of power seems to turn Izaya's blade to glass instead of steel, when Shizuo is afraid to even twist his wrist and catch the force the wrong way for what effect it might have on his weapon; if he tries that now, when even steel dragged and strained against the impact-

 _Not_ on _me_. Izaya is talking fast, throwing the words so quickly into Shizuo's mind they almost feel like they're the meister's own rather than coming from some outside source. _Through me. Send it through my wavelength instead of over it, like how you make yourself stronger_.

Shizuo blinks. _What?_ The witch is approaching again; Shizuo lifts his weapon hand without thinking, only barely managing to turn the blow so he hits with the weight of the knife handle instead of the fragile edge of the blade. The witch takes a half-step back, barely an acknowledgment of the blow at all, but Shizuo isn't really paying attention to her right now; he's frowning at the idea Izaya is offering, scowling himself into focus as he works through the possibility. He'd have to treat Izaya as part of himself, would have to send the current of his Soul Force down the length of his arm and through his fingertips, fit it to the line of the blade in his hand and saturate the metal with all the power that he broke himself against as a child. It will make the weapon stronger, certainly; but it shattered his bones when he was young, tore his muscles and dislocated his joints until he became strong enough to bear the force. With Izaya, who can barely stand the glancing contact of Soul Force running over his weapon form: _How do you know I won't hurt you?_

Izaya's answer comes instantly. _I don't_. Shizuo takes a breath, startled to speechlessness by this immediate response, and in his head Izaya steadies himself, like he's bracing for the weight of a physical blow. _Just do it_.

If it were another fight Shizuo might hesitate longer. The witch is doing enough damage all on her own; he doesn't have the least interest in doing her work for her by forcing more strain on his weapon partner than Izaya can handle. But there's another attack coming, and he can feel the effort of their combat aching in all his limbs in a way he's never felt it before; and it's no more risky than his own half-formed idea and offers a better chance of survival, certainly for himself and maybe for Izaya too. So he takes a breath, feels the crackle of his soul wavelength humming through every line of his body like it's straining to be set free; and then he lets his control go and lets power surge out into him with complete unfettered freedom. It's a relief, the way it's always a relief to let his self-restraint loose of the constant effort to hold himself back; and then it hits Izaya, and runs _through_ Izaya, and everything shifts sideways.

There's a moment of panic. Shizuo can feel it like it's his own, as it might _be_ his own, it's impossible to place the source for that sudden flicker of terror. There's something faint in the back of Shizuo's head, _keep him_ and _take over_ like fading echoes of a far-off shout, but Shizuo doesn't have any time to think about them because Izaya is reaching for him, Izaya's Soul Possession is crackling up his arm and stretching for his self, and this time it makes contact, tightening hard around Shizuo's awareness like it's trying to steal control away from Shizuo like it did that very first day. But there's no force behind it, there's no desperate pull; there's just the contact, like fingers closing tight around Shizuo's wrist, like Izaya is trying to hold himself steady instead of trying to drag Shizuo off-balance. Shizuo's chest tightens, his breathing catching on a surge of fright; and then fingers tighten around the handle of a weapon, around _his_ handle, and he realizes it's not his panic that is so gripping at the rhythm of his heartbeat. Izaya is _terrified_ , Shizuo can feel the fear as if it's his own; except it is his own, it _is_ him, there's no line between where his thoughts leave off and Izaya's begin. Shizuo reaches out, sliding past Izaya's frantic control to fit inside his own body again, to calm the frantic rush of his heart with familiar focus; and Izaya's wavelength seizes at him, latching onto every part of his body as if trying to lay claim to him, as if trying to print his mark on some fundamental part of Shizuo's soul.

 _Mine_ , Izaya wails, and inside Shizuo's head the word turns over on itself, echoing back through the connection between them to gain clarity words could never grant it. Shizuo can feel the weight of that one gasp, can feel the whole endless wave of jealous want that comes with it, can feel the crippling knot of misery that fists around his heart at the memory of abandonment he's never experienced, at the weight of loneliness he's only ever borrowed. He had nothing, possessed nothing, _was_ nothing - and now he has, owns, _belongs_ in a way that Shizuo can feel resonate through his consciousness with all the weight of an anchor dropping to the bottom of the ocean to form a fixed point that will never move again.

"Yours," he says aloud, his voice louder and clearer than he expected it to be, and that wasn't what he intended to say, and he didn't realize it would sound so true, but he's saying it, and it tastes like the sincerity he can feel radiating out against the inside of their shared forms. _Your partner. Your meister. Your Shizuo. Yours._ The thought is clear in his head, is surging through the connection between them as if it's as much Izaya's creation as his own; and the tension digging in against Shizuo's self eases, like clutching fingers letting a white-knuckled grip go slack in a rush of relief. Shizuo's chest loosens, his lungs fill with a gasp of air, and they're moving as one, a single cohesive motion formed from the shared goal clasped between them both. The witch is staring wide-eyed with shock, is retreating, is making an attempt at an escape so clearly futile they don't even have to speed their action. It's a simple matter of instinct, the meister's body raising the razor-edge of the weapon in his hand, both of them falling into alignment with the same grace that fit their wavelengths together; and then down, a clean arc that slices through the resistance of the witch's body without a breath of hesitation. There's a rush of wind, a shift of air suddenly sweeping in to fill a sudden vacuum; and the witch is gone, dissolved, evaporating to shadows and nothingness as fast as Shizuo can focus his attention. Her form goes dark, unravelling on itself as if someone's pulled a loose thread from a knit sweater; and then even the witch's shadow has vanished, and all that is left is the glow of the soul in front of them and the remnants of unneeded adrenaline rushing hard in their shared lungs.

It's Izaya who moves first. Shizuo is struggling for air, struggling for coherency, struggling to make sense out of the idea of _him_ and _me_ as separate concepts, of _meister_ and _weapon_ as distinct ideas instead of just half-finished pieces of a unified whole, of the single existence they should have been, they were meant to be, they have always-and there's a shift in his head, a wordless hiss of desperate action, and an awful _wrong_ sensation, like all the blood in Shizuo's veins is being pulled out of him at once. Shizuo chokes for air, opening his mouth in an unformed attempt to fill the sudden void that has opened up in his chest; and in his hand Izaya's weapon form disintegrates, collapsing into a vacuum as quickly as the witch's form did. Shizuo blinks hard, managing to gasp himself into a full lungful of air, and beside him Izaya's human form hits the ground, and stumbles, and falls forward onto his hands and knees.

 _Izaya_ , Shizuo says, except that his voice won't work right, he's still caught in the middle of a reflexive cough as he strains to remember how his body works without the pressure of Izaya's soul wavelength clinging tight to every corner of his being. He feels empty, like Izaya's stripped away more than just his presence with his abrupt departure, as if the drag of the other's wavelength has taken parts of Shizuo with it to leave him dripping more blood than any of the witch's attacks ever managed to draw. Izaya doesn't look much better; his head is ducked down, his fingers tensing hard against the dirt under him, and Shizuo can see his shoulders trembling, can see the whole line of his spine shaking like he's trying to unmake himself in imitation of the witch they've just defeated.

"Izaya," Shizuo manages, forcing the name from his chest more by desperation than anything else. It comes out rough, almost a growl in a way he didn't intend, but at least it comes out at all; it's more than he was sure he could manage. "Are you…" His voice fades out in his throat, abandoning him mid-sentence; he reaches out, thinking vaguely to offer the support of a hand at Izaya's shoulder, physical contact at the back of the other's neck, fingers sliding comfort into dark hair, some kind of connection to bridge the sudden chasm of distance that feels so cripplingly wide, now, in comparison with that moment of absolute connection they had. Shizuo feels like they might be okay if he could touch Izaya's shoulder, like he might be able to remember how to breathe and how to unfasten the knot fixing tight around his chest, like he could steady the visible tremor running through Izaya's body under the weight of his hand. _Mine_ , Izaya had said, the word weighted down with an infinity of possessive desperation, and Shizuo feels sure he could make sense of it, feels sure he could give Izaya whatever it is the other is so craving if he could only span the gap between them - but he can't move his feet, he can't trust his balance enough to even bend his knees without collapsing to the ground in front of him, and while he's locked to stillness by his own uncertainty Izaya's shoulders hunch, Izaya's head dips down, and Izaya grates out "Done," with his voice as raw and strained as Shizuo's felt.

Shizuo blinks, feels his mouth fall into a frown of confusion. "Done?" he repeats, echoing back the words Izaya gives him to speak. "What? What's done?"

"We are." Izaya lifts his head, digs his fingers in hard against the ground under him; and then he's moving, shoving himself up and forwards in a stumbling movement like a fall in reverse. He reaches for the soul, closes his grip hard around the glow of it; his hand eclipses the light, dims their surroundings back to the more typical greys of the evening instead of the strange backlit illumination the soul granted. Shizuo thinks for a moment Izaya's going to swallow the soul right there, is going to make himself a Death Weapon and sever their connection as student partners at one fell swoop; but Izaya turns instead, twisting away so all Shizuo can see of him is the hunch of his shoulders under his shadow-dark shirt.

"You did it," Izaya says without turning, his words so soft Shizuo thinks he might not hear them at all if it weren't Izaya speaking, if he couldn't feel his very bones thrum with remembered resonance to match the tenor of those words in Izaya's throat. Shizuo wants to speak but he can't find voice for it; it's as if Izaya has stolen that as well as everything else, as if that forced fall out of Resonance left him without words for all the things he wants to say, for all the things behind Izaya's dark stare that he understands, now. But Izaya still has words, Izaya has too many, Izaya is laying them down like blows: "You made a Death Weapon. You should be proud of yourself. You did what you set out to do." His fingers tense against the soul in his hand; Shizuo can see the color of it saturating Izaya's fingertips, turning his skin translucent with the illumination. "You're done with me."

 _I'm not_ , Shizuo wants to tell him. _We're not done._ We _should be proud of ourselves. Why are you leaving?_ But Shizuo can't speak, and Izaya is moving away, stumbling forward across the uneven ground without looking back or asking for help. It's as if Shizuo has ceased to exist entirely, as if Izaya has traded the support of a meister for the flickering light of the witch's soul, the last soul, clutched tight in his desperate fingers. It's not enough to hold him upright - he stumbles twice that Shizuo sees, once collapsing entirely to his knees before he forces himself to upright and continues moving forward - but if Izaya can't stand upright Shizuo can't move at all, can't recall how to go through the motions of turning and walking and reaching out to cross a gap that is growing wider with every step Izaya takes. He's left to watch in silence, his mouth open on the words he feels and can't speak, his legs trembling with the motion he wants to take and can't recall how to effect.

Shizuo's never felt so helpless before.


	19. Wanting

Izaya is in his bedroom when Shizuo comes back to the apartment.

He feels safe right where he is. There's the weight of a locked door at his back, the protection of tight-drawn blinds to hold back the distraction of the reality on the other side of his window; with his shoulders pressed hard against the door and his knees drawn up close against his chest he feels almost secure, feels like he can take another breath, can keep breathing for another minute, maybe can keep existing forever, so long as he never moves again. It's not that unreasonable, the echo of distant thoughts tells him; surely Shizuo won't wait more than a day or two for him, surely whatever frustrations and questions the other has will wear themselves away against the unresponsive resistance of the locked door before giving way and abandoning Izaya to his own devices once again. He'll get hungry eventually, Izaya knows; but he's a weapon, after all, he can always retreat to the security of his blade form and hide from the demands of his physical body as well as the rest of the world.

Maybe he'll stay like that, he thinks, staring into the haze of the witch's soul still glowing where he left it in front of him. He could transform into cold steel, could lose the need for food and rest by trading out one form for another; maybe if he stays a weapon long enough he'll forget the ache in his chest too, maybe he'll be able to forget how it feels to want, how it feels to crave the approval and affection and commitment that he'll never get, not voluntarily, not without winding his way inside someone's soul and forcing their psyche into the shape of a puppet to cater to his needs. He could stay here for days, he thinks, weeks, maybe months; maybe by the time someone cares enough to force the locked door open anything that was _Izaya_ will be gone, maybe there will just be a bedroom with the glow of a witch's soul to illuminate the shine of the cursed weapon he will make of himself. It's almost pleasant to consider: losing himself in the simplicity of a razor edge and an endless longing, until he can forget anything but the basic need to consume, to possess, to find satisfaction in the only acceptance he can ever find, in affection spilled from lips no more than mouthpieces for the demands of his wavelength. No more rejection, no more disappointment, no more _meister_ ; just tools, toys, things he can appreciate with the distant affection of a god looking down at the charming idiosyncrasies of his creation. It's a good idea, he thinks, a safe idea, something he can use to hold himself together against the too-strong blows of caring, of connection, of attachments that break and shatter and leave him all too undone from their abuse. He wants it to be over, wants to be done with the mockery of human existence he has played at too long; and then he hears the door to the apartment open, hears Shizuo's voice calling his name, "Izaya?" unsure and tentative, and his throat closes so hard on emotion that for a moment he can't even take a breath.

He knew this was coming. There's no way to escape it, short of abandoning the apartment entirely, and Izaya's not completely sure that would work in any case; he can imagine Shizuo coming after him, if only in pursuit of answers to the questions Izaya is sure he's going to have, and Izaya isn't sure he could outrun them, isn't completely sure he _wants_ to outrun them. Easier to brace himself against the support of the door, and duck his head in against his drawn-up knees, and let the storm of Shizuo's voice break over him until unresponsive silence saps the other's energy and interest and leaves Izaya to himself once again.

"Izaya." Louder, this time, from proximity instead of volume; Izaya can hear the sound of Shizuo's footfalls coming down the hallway, imagines he can feel the vibration of the other's movement running along the floor to jolt up his spine. He tightens his arms around his legs and doesn't lift his head, even when the footsteps draw to a halt outside his shut door.

"Izaya." A knock, knuckles rapping hard against the wood; Izaya feels the force hum down the door to ground out against him. He doesn't shift. "You're in there, right?" Another knock, with a pair of impacts this time. Izaya barely breathes. "Izaya, please open the door." Shizuo sounds strange through the barrier of the door; his voice is softer than Izaya is used to hearing it, gentle as if he's talking to someone fragile, slow like he's trying to pick his words with deliberate care. There's another knock, almost a tap for how tentative it is. "I don't know if you're okay. Are you hurt?"

Izaya shuts his eyes, squeezing them tight as if he can push back the sound of Shizuo's voice if he cuts off the distraction of his vision; but it only heightens his attention, only brings the focus he's trying to scatter into more clarity on the pause before Shizuo speaks, on the soft weight of what Izaya thinks is probably a hand pressing against the other side of the door. There's a bump against the support - Shizuo pressing his head to the door, Izaya guesses - and then a huff of sound, a sigh that comes bearing far more weight than any of Shizuo's raps at the barrier between them.

"I think you're there," Shizuo says, his voice carrying clear around the edges of the doorway. Izaya wishes he had the willpower to lift his hands to cover his ears. "You're listening to me, aren't you?" There's a shift of sound, fabric dragging across wood; Shizuo must be leaning against his forearm now, trusting his balance to the support of the locked door. "I just want to talk." A breath, a sigh; Izaya can feel his lungs empty in time with Shizuo's, can feel his body trying to orient itself to match the other's actions even now, as if his physical form is unwilling to let the connection between them go.

"I wasn't trying to Resonate with you." Shizuo sounds heavy, worn-out, so exhausted Izaya remembers the weight of the witch's blows crushing against the meister's body, his imagination skipping unwillingly to the bruises that must be rising at Shizuo's shoulder, chest, knee. His chest tightens, aches on something he doesn't want to look at and doesn't want to call sympathy. "I know you didn't want to, before. I didn't mean to do it, I was just trying to take your advice." There's a pause, the moment going heavy with unvoiced words. "Sorry."

Izaya can feel his shoulders tense, can feel his spine curving as if it can make a cage to protect him from Shizuo's words, as if the brittle framework of his bones can somehow hold back the sound of Shizuo apologizing, can undo the sincerity on the other's voice as he offers regret for the single most satisfying moment of Izaya's life, for the experience of being so entirely connected to someone else that Izaya couldn't find the gaps between them, that he couldn't be afraid of rejection anymore than he would fear rejection of his own body. It had been breathtaking, had been an epiphany: _I didn't know it could feel like this_ as the reassurance of Shizuo's attention had swept over all Izaya's insecurities, had met every one of his half-panicked ideas and swept them aside with the sheer force of affection and care too strong for even Izaya to doubt.

Shizuo is still speaking, still voicing words to the blank resistance of the door that Izaya can feel run down his spine like an echo of that wavelength that undid him, that remade him, that took apart the pieces of himself that have never fit together and turned them around into something whole, complete, _stable_ like he's never felt before, like he can't let himself hope he'll ever feel again. "I thought you wanted to become a Death Weapon. That's what you've always said, this whole time you-" He cuts himself off mid-sentence, as the words spike towards the raw edge of anger; Izaya imagines he can see Shizuo's eyes shut, imagines he can hear the deliberate inhale the other takes and lets out. When Shizuo speaks again his voice is level, carefully metered around the words as if he can grant them more weight by the slower pace.

"I don't know what you want, Izaya." Izaya can feel the words fit against his bones, can feel them tense around his chest as if Shizuo's fingers are around his heart, as if every rush of blood through his veins is coming only by fighting against the latent strength of the other's hold. His throat is tight, his eyes are aching; he feels lightheaded, like he might be about to pass out where he sits, but consciousness clings to him, the pull of Shizuo's words bracing him to attention whether he wants to hear them or not. "I've been collecting souls with you because you said that's what you wanted, that you wanted to become a Death Weapon and graduate and leave me." Shizuo takes a breath, loud enough this time that Izaya doesn't have to imagine the sound of it; he can hear it right through the door, as clear as the sound of his own breathing catching in his chest. "I don't know what to give you if you don't tell me." Shizuo sighs an exhale. Izaya can't get any air past the knot in his throat.

"Please." Shizuo's voice is whisper-soft on the other side of the door. Izaya imagines Shizuo's mouth parting on the word, imagines the shape of his lips forming the sound to the edge of audibility against the wood. He wonders if he's even meant to hear, wonders if Shizuo knows he's listening. "Please, Izaya, just tell me what you want."

Izaya doesn't move. He would, maybe, if he had an answer, if he knew how to put words to the aching pressure choking off his airway and burning to the beginnings of tears behind his eyes; but he can't answer Shizuo's plea, even if he knew he wanted to. If he had ever been able to give voice to the endless, desperate _want_ caught in the curve of his ribcage he wouldn't have this problem in the first place, he wouldn't have had to wait through months of loneliness before finding a meister willing to stay with him, and he wouldn't have spent the last year doing everything in his power to hold Shizuo away. He couldn't manage it, in the end - Shizuo was too strong, or Izaya was too weak - but what Shizuo is asking of him feels impossible, demands a certainty from Izaya that he can't offer even in this, even when it's the shape of his own feelings he's trying to frame.

The silence goes long. Izaya wonders if Shizuo is even still on the other side of the door; except that he hasn't heard a sigh of resignation, hasn't heard the rhythm of the footsteps spelling out another abandonment, another severing of the connection Izaya wants so badly he can't make himself even reach out for it. The seconds collect to minutes, minutes stack one atop the other; and then, just as Izaya is starting to think Shizuo has slipped away silently after all: "I'm going to keep waiting," calm, level, without any trace of the vicious temper Izaya remembers from the early days of his partnership with Shizuo. This isn't a threat; it's a promise, it's a vow, it's as certain and unshakeable as a wall at Izaya's back. "Take as long as you need." There's the sound of something shifting at the door; a sleeve again, maybe, Shizuo drawing back from his lean against the support of the locked door. "I won't leave you."

Izaya's shoulders tense, his whole body flickering to heat at the weight of those words. They're delivered so casually, almost uncaringly; if it were someone else Izaya would sweep them aside, would dismiss them as entirely unfounded the same way he would if he made such a claim himself. But he can feel his heartbeat echo Shizuo's voice, can feel the certainty of those words sinking into his veins: _I won't leave you_ , and they feel like gravity locking itself onto him, like Shizuo is gripping his shoulders and holding him to a fixed point on the earth, like Shizuo's voice is running through Izaya's body to grant him borrowed strength the same way the meister's soul wavelength did in the face of the witch.

Izaya opens his eyes, and lifts his head. Before him the witch's soul glows with faint illumination, the flicker of light casting the details of the room into shadow; when Izaya lifts his hand the glow clings to his skin as well, lingering at the angle of his wrist and the joints of his fingers to make them something unfamiliar, something foreign as he reaches out for the sphere, as his fingers slide unresisted past the smoky haze clinging around the soul and his grip settles against the odd, wet-slick texture of the sphere itself. His throat is still tight, his chest still aching; there's no way he'd be able to force himself to swallow this down, he thinks, even with Shizuo's palm pressed flush against his mouth to urge him to the action.

That's okay, though. He won't need to.

It takes Izaya a moment to get the lock on the door open. His hands are as unsteady as his legs feel; he has to lean hard against the door to keep himself upright, and with the light of the soul dimmed by his grip on it he has to manage the lock one-handed and in something far closer to dark than it would be otherwise. He manages it after a few seconds of willing his fingers to steadiness and his breathing to calm, and if he fails at both those attempts at least he gets the door unlocked, and gets his feet under himself, and finally closes his trembling hand on the handle and pulls the door open.

Shizuo is waiting for him. He's not leaning on the door anymore; he's standing in the middle of the hallway, steady on his feet and with his hands loose at his sides, his whole stance perfectly easy as if he intends to stay there forever. His eyes are fixed on Izaya, his mouth soft and relaxed into neutrality; and Izaya has to duck his head, has to turn his face down behind the shadow of his hair, because he doesn't trust himself to speak at all if he's looking into Shizuo's eyes.

"I don't want this," he says, and reaches out to shove the witch's soul hard against Shizuo's chest. Shizuo lifts a hand to catch it, the motion reflexive and so fast Izaya doesn't have time to draw his hand back before Shizuo's fingers are closing atop his, his hand tangling over Izaya's to pin both the witch's soul and Izaya's fingers against him. Izaya's breath catches, his fingers tighten; but he doesn't try to slide his hand free, and Shizuo doesn't let him go.

"I don't want to be a Death Weapon," he says, aiming his words at the front of Shizuo's shirt, just below the glow of the soul caught between their hands. He's talking fast, racing against the tension climbing in his throat with every word, but he's running out of air, he's struggling to find breath to keep speaking no matter how rushed he makes the words. "I don't want to be a symbol of Shibusen, I don't want to be-" His voice sticks, trips over the back of his tongue, and even closing his mouth hard can't completely muffle the sound of the sob that pulls free of his chest. Izaya blinks hard, willing his eyes to stay dry, willing his throat to clear; and then his vision comes back into focus on Shizuo's shirt, at the glow of the witch's soul under their fingers, at the angle of Shizuo's hand holding his own steady, and he can feel honesty pressing against his chest, can feel the words tumbling clear of his lips almost before he knows what they'll be.

"I don't want to be anyone's weapon but yours."

Shizuo's fingers tighten against Izaya's, the meister takes a breath; and Izaya slides his hand free, his arm pulling his fingers free of the weight of Shizuo's hold with the unthinking weight of exhaustion behind it. He feels hollow, empty, as if the sincerity of the words has left him drained of whatever strength he had left after their fight; but he stays where he is, because it's easier to hold still than to move, and because he's afraid if he lets the locked-out angle of his legs once give way he'll collapse to the ground or into Shizuo's arms, and he's not sure which would be worse.

Shizuo is quiet for what feels like a very long time. Izaya counts time by the rhythm of his heart against his ribcage, by the eternity of delay that comes between each of his inhales. Finally Shizuo takes a breath, a deep one, loud with the implication of determination, and when he moves it's to draw his hand back from his chest with the soul still caught tight in his fingers. He takes a step forward, closing the distance between them to nothing; and Izaya gasps a strangled inhale as Shizuo's free hand catches at the back of his head, as Shizuo's fingers brace into an unbreakable hold to keep him in place.

"Wait," he says, and he's lifting his head, feeling his throat work in preemptive rejection of the slick weight of the witch's soul, feeling his teeth clench in refusal he's not sure he can hold to, if Shizuo chooses to oppose him. "Shizuo, I-" and Shizuo is leaning in over him, and Shizuo's mouth is on his, and Shizuo is kissing him, hard, the weight of his mouth a bruising force at Izaya's lips. Izaya's eyes go wide, his throat closes up on shock, and Shizuo is taking another step in, closer even than before, so near that Izaya can feel the whole warm weight of the other's body pressing against him. Izaya feels like he's going to fall, like his already precarious balance is like to collapse under this new force; but Shizuo's fingers are bracing at the back of his head to hold him up, and when Izaya's hands come up it's to grab at the front of Shizuo's shirt, and Izaya might not be able to keep himself upright but that's okay, he doesn't have to, because Shizuo has him, Shizuo will keep steady for them both.

Izaya frees one hand from his desperate hold, sliding his touch up to curl his fingers hard around the back of Shizuo's neck, and Shizuo drops the witch's soul entirely, lets it slide from his hold to fall forgotten to the ground while his hand comes out to catch at Izaya's shoulder, to draw up the curve of his throat, to settle in against the line of his jaw. His touch is warm, his fingers gentle and steady at once; Izaya can feel the press of Shizuo's palms framing his head, holding him still and supported even as Shizuo's lips press dizzying heat into his veins. Izaya's eyes shut, his mouth opens, and Shizuo turns his head to press closer, to taste against the part of Izaya's lips and press ticklish sensation against the roof of Izaya's mouth with a thorough focus that makes Izaya feel undone, laid open between the press of Shizuo's palms and the drag of his tongue into the base components of what he is, what he has always been, what Shizuo unfolds him into. His heart is pounding, he thinks, or maybe it's Shizuo's, he can no more tell them apart than he can ease his grip at the back of the meister's neck; but when Shizuo pulls him closer Izaya goes, his whole body tipping forward to press flush against Shizuo's, and when Shizuo makes a low sound against his lips Izaya leans closer to chase the hum of it with his tongue. Shizuo's mouth is warm, his lips are electric, and Izaya can make out the sweet spicy of vanilla against his tongue.

Shizuo tastes better than any soul Izaya's ever eaten.


	20. Gentle

Izaya is packing when Shizuo comes through the front door.

"I'm home!" Shizuo calls from the entryway, pausing only long enough to toe his shoes off and hang his coat up on the hook next to the dark soft of Izaya's usual jacket. The front hallway still looks normal, especially compared to the disarray that has descended upon the rest of the house, but Shizuo doesn't linger to appreciate the brief oasis of calm in the midst of chaos; he's heading down the hallway already, making for the two open doors and trying to guess where Izaya is most likely to be. "Izaya?"

"In here." Izaya's voice comes from Shizuo's room instead of his own; Shizuo isn't even particularly surprised by this evidence of the other's presence, under the circumstances. He turns around the corner to the doorway on the right rather than the one on the left and pauses in the entrance, leaning against the frame as he considers the devastation Izaya is sitting in the middle of.

"I thought it would be alright to leave you alone for an hour," he says, eying the array of boxes Izaya has arranged around him like the walls of a child's play fort and the pile of clothes the other is currently picking through. "I should have made you come with me to meet with the Headmaster after all."

"No way am I going outside today," Izaya declares without looking up from the shirt he's folding over on itself. "It's absolutely freezing, I'm not leaving the house for anything."

"It's not that cold," Shizuo tells him, swinging his foot out to toe idly against the side of one of the cardboard boxes half-full with what look and feel like bedsheets. "I can pack up my own room, you know, you don't need to worry about it."

"It's inefficient to have separate sets of boxes when we're moving into one bedroom," Izaya informs him. "I only half-filled most of mine, we might as well combine everything now rather than trying to do it when we're unpacking."

Shizuo looks over his shoulder at Izaya's room. It's no more tidy than his own; from the looks of things there's more than enough left to overfill the boxes Izaya is so assiduously working over now. "Looks like you missed a few things on your side."

"Shut up," Izaya says, and Shizuo looks back just in time to be hit in the face with the soft of one of his old t-shirts, the ones worn so thin they're useless for anything other than pajamas. He catches it as it falls, offering Izaya a scowl of response as he tosses it towards one of the open boxes, but Izaya doesn't so much as bat an eye at this evidence of Shizuo's disapproval. "I'm doing you a favor, you should be grateful." He looks away again, back down to the heap of shirts in front of him; but Shizuo's attention is already sliding across the curve of Izaya's shoulders, his focus drawn to the familiarity of the pale shirt fitting into loose comfort across the other's skin.

"Hey," he says, and steps forward into the room, kicking aside a box as he approaches. "Is that my shirt?"

Izaya's shoulders tense immediately. "No," he says, so quickly he gives up any hope of sincerity from his denial even before Shizuo has drawn close enough to make out the details of the faded text across the back of the fabric. "Why would I be wearing your shirt, Shizu-chan, don't be ridiculous. Your fashion sense is appalling enough to witness without actively participating in it myself."

"I don't know why you would," Shizuo tells him, and reaches out to push against the box closest to Izaya's hip so he can slide it backwards by a handful of inches and clear enough space for him to drop to a knee behind the other. He lifts a hand to touch against the loose curve of the collar just at the back of Izaya's neck; he can feel the tremor of reaction that runs through the other like it's electricity. "This is definitely mine, though."

"My mistake," Izaya says without lifting his head to meet Shizuo's gaze. "I must have mixed up our clothes while I was packing."

"Must be," Shizuo says, and tips back to sit on the floor so he can kick one leg out wide around Izaya's hip. "You also must be going completely blind, since my things look nothing like yours."

"Mm," Izaya says. "Yes, I've been meaning to mention something about that but there was never a good time to bring it up."

"To bring up the fact that you can't _see_?" Shizuo asks. He reaches out for Izaya's hip, touches his fingers just against the loose fall of his shirt over the other's skin; Izaya tenses again, his back arching in response to the glancing contact, and Shizuo smiles unseen. "You should have told me sooner, that's a hazard when we go out on missions."

"It doesn't make a difference," Izaya tells him. He hasn't turned around and hasn't let his hold on the shirt in his hands go, but he hasn't shifted at all since Shizuo stepped in behind him; when Shizuo slides his hand around Izaya's hip to press against the other's stomach and draw him backwards Izaya tips to the force without protest, letting Shizuo urge him back until the strained angle of his shoulders is flush against the other's chest. "You're the one who's in charge anyway, I just do whatever you want me to."

"We're _partners_ ," Shizuo tells him, tightening his hold around Izaya to punctuate the words. "You're just as important in fights as I am."

"Liar," Izaya says, dropping the shirt in his hands so he can reach up and shove roughly at the side of Shizuo's head instead. "You would be amazing with any weapon, it's not just me."

"It _is_ just you," Shizuo tell him, catching at Izaya's wrist with his free hand so he can stall the other's attempted blows. "It has to be you."

"No it doesn't." Izaya angles his other arm in close against him, pushing back with his elbow to attempt to shove pressure in against Shizuo's side. Shizuo huffs at the impact and lets his hold on Izaya's waist go just long enough to loop his arm over the other's and pin it close against Izaya's side to prevent further action.

"It _does_ ," he says again, and leans forward to press his mouth just behind Izaya's ear, against the fall of dark hair. Izaya flinches at the contact, his body pushing against the restraint of Shizuo's hold; and then Shizuo draws down by a half-inch, pressing closer to kiss against the soft skin under Izaya's ear, and he can feel all the resistance drain out of the other's body, can hear the huff of an exhale Izaya gives as he goes slack against the support of Shizuo's arms around him. Shizuo hums against Izaya's hair, presses closer to fit another kiss just under the damp of the first, and Izaya lets his head cant sideways to make an offering of the line of his throat down to a pale shoulder left half-bare by the loose collar of Shizuo's shirt.

"It has to be you," Shizuo says again, fitting the words against warm skin; he can feel Izaya's fingers shift, can feel the flicker of answering tension in the other's body in the shift of muscle and tendon underneath his grip holding the other's arm still. "You're my weapon partner. No one else."

"Shut up," Izaya says, making a vague attempt at pulling free that somehow just leaves him pressed closer against Shizuo's chest than he was. "Maybe you just haven't met the right person yet."

"I have," Shizuo says. "You aren't listening to me."

"I am too." Izaya twists his wrist in Shizuo's hand, making a sincere bid for freedom this time that Shizuo capitulates to; but instead of shoving the other away his fingers come up to slide into Shizuo's hair instead, to settle into the weight of the locks like he has no intention of ever moving them again. "It's just hard to pay attention when you're not making any sense."

"Izaya," Shizuo says against the side of the other's neck. "Be quiet."

Izaya's mouth curves onto the start of a smile, Izaya's head turns like he's following the sound of Shizuo's voice. "What if I don't want to?"

"Then I'll make you be quiet," Shizuo says, and lifts his head so he can press his mouth to Izaya's before the other has a chance to offer the provocation Shizuo can see forming in the curve of his lips. Izaya hums against his mouth, his fingers tighten on Shizuo's hair, and Shizuo lets his arm fall over Izaya's shoulder to brace the other in place against the gentle weight of Shizuo's mouth on his.

Tomorrow they'll be moving to a new apartment, leaving behind the space that has taken on the familiarity of home over the months they've been living together as Shibusen students. Everything they own is in boxes or on the way there shortly; Shizuo's bedroom hardly feels like his anymore at all, with everything he recognizes stripped down and packed away. But he has Izaya turning in his hold to wind an arm around his shoulders, and Shizuo's fingers are sliding around to pin the weight of his shirt against the arch of Izaya's back, and right now he couldn't feel more at peace.

Under his touch, all Izaya's sharp edges smooth to gentle curves.


End file.
